Drowning kangaroo rescued from surf on the Gold CoastFont
Man rescues drowning kangaroo in surf
Sharks spotted in the same area
Got caught in a rip before being saved

Lucky escape ... surfer Neil McCallum saved a kangaroo that was stuck in a rip. Picture: Today Tonight
A QUEENSLAND father of three has put Bondi Rescue, Bondi Vet and Steve Irwin to shame with an early morning rescue of a drowning kangaroo off a tourist beach.

Neil McCallum, 48, was on a morning walk with his son, Jazz, 15, about 6am (AEST) on Tuesday along Kirra Beach on the Gold Coast when a juvenile roo bounded across his path, jumped into the surf and started swimming out to sea.

Concerned that two hammerhead sharks had been in the same spot in recent days, the pair kept an eye on the roo until it got caught in a rip, The Courier-Mail reports.

"A guy came up and said: 'Gee your dog's a long way out'," Mr McCallum said yesterday. "I said: 'That's not a dog, that's a kangaroo'."

So Mr McCallum, a professional circuit speaker, dashed home, grabbed his long board and returned to the rescue.

"It was very frightened by the time I got to it. I grabbed it on the back and it sort of shook me off like a wild animal. So I tried to wrestle him on to my surfboard and he found it difficult to stay on board."

Eventually he herded the roo into a sand bar where it recovered before bounding away.

A built-up area located about 20km from Surfers Paradise, Kirra Beach is not exactly typical roo country.

Mr McCallum said he'd never seen a kangaroo in the area before, only bush turkeys and, yesterday morning, a koala.

His wife, Amanda, caught the incident on the family video camera and the footage will be shown on Seven's Today Tonight tonight.