The saga of The Rat

I have covered parts of this in various daily posts but thought it was an important enough part of the trip - in terms of the number of days it affected - to get a full post of its own.

The story began on August 4 as I delivered the Pajero to a dealership in Mareeba to get some important work done.  The main street of Mareeba is limited to 40kph and there are quite a few pedestrian crossings.  Each time we approached a crossing with peiople on it they'd point at the front of the car and look worried.  I assumed this was because fluids were leaking (part of the reason for the work) smiled, and carried on.

The next day we turned up to collect the car (all work done) and the mechanic commented on the big rodent in the car.  He then explained that when they were working under the car (on 4 August) they had suddenly found a large rat looking at them.  They got a bit vocal at this point - to the extent that the receptionist went to see what was causing the fuss.    However the rat disappeared and they didn't know where it had gone: was it somewhere in the car or somewhere in the workshop?  ( I suspect that the rat was hanging 20 on the front of the car and that is what the folk in the Mareeba street were pointing at!)

It was suggested the rat was a White-tailed Rat Uromys caudimaculatus and had invaded the car from a rainforest.  We had seen warnings about them around Lake Tinaroo and were aware that

"The Giant White-tailed Rat loves to chew all sorts of materials such as plastic, rubber, electrical wires, leather, tin and canvas. They will often bite cans open and consume the contents. Some people even believe the rats can read the labels! They have been known to damage and disable vehicles too by biting through fan belts and water hoses."  

This was not good if it was still evident.  See also this story from the ABC.

On the way home we stopped at a roadside stall and bought a sack of Atherton spuds (nice fresh spuds at a good price).  This was left in the car overnight. on 6 August we started to pack things up and I noticed that the sack had been gnawed, as had a spud.  Obviously Mr Rat was still in the car.  The sack was moved to a secure area in the (rat-free as far as we knew, and still know) camper.  The remains of the munched spud were donated to the bantams.

So we called in to the supermarket in Yungaburra and acquired some Ratsak.  This was placed around  inside the car the next night.  In the morning it looked as though a few bits of bait had been nibbled but there wasn't a corpse.  So we headed off on our way home.

Our first overnight was at Alva Beach.  More Ratsak was distributed.  On the 8th I inspected the baits and they appeared to have been untouched but a few rodentish turds were evident.  As we got in the car to drive off Tammy started digging into the back seat: she knew where ratty was!  Unload the entire car and there was the target between the back seat and the tray in the boot.  Tammy was inserted but looked the wrong way and Rat departed for parts unknown.

So we drove off towards Mackay hoping that it hadn't chewed through anything.  Never had warning lights been studied so closely.  Of course, our noses were also twirching in case it had croaked behind some bodywork - in view of O'Reilly Law (which basically reads  "Murphy was an optimist") it was bound to go somewhere inaccessible to die and subsequently rot.

On getting to Mackay without a major system failure or an olfactory explosion, I eventually found a Bunnings (Coles, K-Mart and Woolworths all failing to have rat traps) and they provided some suitable spring-loaded devices.  Frances had suggested buying 2, but I got 3 to cover all parts of the car!  They were baited with cheese and spread around the car.

On the morning of the 9th the cheese had gone but the traps hadn't fired.  No ratsak taken.  Drive on, to Rockhampton again watching the warning lights, and sniffing frequently  That night I tried some peanut butter on one of the traps, which might induce trap firing.  No siree!

By this stage I was beginning to get desperate about how to get rid of the damn thing.  Suddenly I thought about using a glue trap.  We tried a couple of spots on our way to Goondiwindi but they only had mouse sized glue traps which wouldn't slow this beast up.  More cheese consumed in Goondiwindi but the next morning the Home Hardware store in Goondiwindi had some large, rat-sized glue traps.  When I explained why we needed them I was asked to ensure I took the rat away with us.

So the next (last of the trip) night a couple of glue traps were put out when we set up in Wellington.  A little after dark I looked through the window into the boot and the trap there had been overturned.  On opening the boot area the rat was still attached to the trap.  A couple of minutes of (I regret to say, enjoyable) violence then ensued with the result that the Rat was no longer a problem.  Finally.

My belief is that it wasn't in fact a White-tailed rat but just a fairly large black rat (Rattus rattus).  Alan Gillanders has subsequently identified the beast from a photograph, as a Fawn-footed Melomys (Melomys cervinipes) and noted that they can be very destructive. It doesn't seem to damaged anything other than munching some of a dessicated specimen which Frances was bringing home for scientific and artistic study.  The damn rodent effectively messed up 6 days of our trip (and a potato)!