Surfer Saves Kangaroo On Gold Coast

Today, we learned the answer to an age-old question regarding kangaroos and surfing.

Yes. They want to surf. They just don’t swim very well.

We also learned the protocol for rescuing a kangaroo should he/she get caught in a rip at your local break.

Turns out to be an easy solution: Grab your log, hand a camcorder to your loved ones, and tell them to press record while you paddle out to salvage Australia’s favorite marsupial.

Just ask forty-eight year-old, Neil McCallum, who according to television and internet reports recently rescued a struggling kangaroo on an otherwise uneventful day at Kirra on the Gold Coast of Australia.

After watching the kangaroo hop into the water at a spot he claims to have surfed for years, McCallum grew alarmed.

“I was with my son Jazz and we thought maybe this was something kangaroos do,” McCallum told Sunrise, an Australian news station. “So we let him go for a while, but then when he got stuck in the rip and was taken about 200 meters out to the ocean we saw he was in trouble…so I grabbed my board and lended him a hand.”

Upon reaching the kangaroo, McCallum thought it best to try to level with the creature.

“He was very,very tired and very, very agitated,” said McCallum. “This is a wild animal as well – so he didn’t want me anywhere near him…I spoke some soothing kangaroo words to him. When we finally got to the beach, he stopped and he looked at me right in the eye for about five or ten seconds and it was as if he was thanking me or saying, ‘What are you doing? You’re wrecking my morning swim.’”

Watch the footage of Neil McCallum’s kangaroo rescue below.