Police on Thursday found Wilga’s abandoned Mitsubishi van about 150km from Beacon in the Karroun Hill area, which has been described as remote and inhospitable country.
The first rule of venturing into the Australian outback:
- Never, ever, abandon your vehicle.
You become extremely hard to find wandering into the Australian wilderness. Many people have died this way thinking they’ll ‘walk to the nearest help’, which may be hundreds of kilometres away, through hostile dangerous heat during the day and extreme cold during the night.
I’d say leaving a note stating your intentions would also be a good idea, if you do leave your vehicle.
I’m surprised someone travelling in such a remote area wouldn’t have some type of satellite communicator, an Inreach type device or a PLB.
As someone who is German and lived in (urban) West Australia for a while and worked in its emergency services as a career paramedic:
People have no idea how fucking large Western Australia is and how fucking empty it is.
There are stations (farms) larger than a fair share of German states.
And yes, my dear Americans, it’s even large by your standards - WA straight across is roughly the distance from SF to St.Louis and if you need an actual road it’s basically the distance from SF to the east coast. With the difference that only 2.9 Million people live there - not even a third of greater SF and almost all of them live in the Perth metro region. Outside of that there are very few population hotspots - after the 2.3 Millions in Perth the second largest town, Bunbury doesn’t even have 100k.
Anyway, the area she got lost in is actually “that remote”, to be honest. The nature reserve is only slightly larger than Luxembourg but fairly “close” to civilization as it’s a nature reserve that is basically defining the end of the civilization in that area. To the west it’s all farms and such. To the east? The big nothing. You only cross one road after 300km and only two more for the next 2000km…
The question I have is what she was doing there. Because it’s not an area you visit spontaneously, not an area you travel through or make a quick detour when going east. Really strange.
Have you heard the story of the death valley Germans, by any chance? It seems to be a common theme with European tourists getting into trouble in remote areas.
Yeah
We had one foreign Tourist do this per month on average.mostly not that dramatic,but still.
Don’t expect “van lifers” to be smart. Came across a few and most of them did not have any camping, survival or military experience/training. They usually thought they had a hotel on 4 wheels and there will always be sun. And 99% of those people were doing yoga. Not saying there is a causation, but at least there is a correlation.
Even a modern iPhone.
Yeah, but please rely on them. An iPhone needs a working display basically to use it - and is far less “rugged” than a proper sat beacon. People tend to have their phones lying somewhere in their car, drop it when they try to get their car out of the sand, or simply forget to charge them.
There is a reason sat beacons are as rugged as they are.
(And btw, they don’t work everywhere and not at all latitudes)
ITT: Downvoters don’t know that latest iPhones have a satellite messaging component: https://support.apple.com/en-us/101573
It doesn’t even have to be that recent, an iPhone 13 will suffice. At least, to a certain extent.
so there’s a place in this world where one can go twelve whole days without contact with another person?
to where should i book tickets?
West Australia is huge. Like really really huge. You can for weeks - with a car- without meeting someone.
Please don’t, though. That really requires experience and a lot of equipment. (Amongst others a sat beacon for emergencies)
But read up on the Gunbarrel highway or the Canning Stock road.
I mean there are lots of places like that?