Recently we had an encounter with a black calf, when a newborn calf arrived unexpectedly. It was a nice surprise.

We've had another surprise, another close encounter with a black calf, but a much scarier experience.

This time of year, with a shortage of grass, you see a lot more big animals on the road. Big kangaroos come out of the bush looking for pasture, and huge deer come out of the mountains. Its quite shocking to see a deer on the side of the road as you whiz by at 100km an hour. Occasionally they move onto the road. There's a dead one on the side of the Great Alpine Road about a kilometre from my front gate. Deer look like a fridge on legs. Hit one of them at full speed and you will wreck your car, and I know more than one person who has done that.

Dusk, and after dark, its something at the back of your mind driving on local roads.

We were on our way to a dinner, travelling after 6pm on a black, wet winter's night. We were coming around the long curved section past Whourouly on the Snow Road. At the very last second we both saw it at the same time…a very big calf, maybe 12 months old, galloping full bore in the same direction as us, on the wrong side of the road.

Black calf, no moon, curved road…its not surprising that we didn't see it, but my stomach reacted before I did. In fact I didn't react, and with the wet, curved road it would have been fatal to slam on the brakes, so we were past it instantly. Luckily for us it followed a line and didn't swerve into us.

It took us both a second to recover and speak, and then a row of cars came hurtling towards us traveling the other way. I flashed them repeatedly with my lights to warn them. No doubt if it was daytime I would have seen the rude gestures I got back. At night all I could see was the angry high beam flashing response.

Around the corner they went, tailgating each other at 100km an hour.

There were no fatalities on that road that night, so the calf must have got out of the way.