Exhausted, dehydrated and disorientated, Carolina Wilga was certain she wasn’t going to be found alive after spending 11 nights lost in the remote Australian outback.
With no idea where she was heading and very alone having abandoned her van to try and find help, she focused on the one navigational guide she knew – walking west by following the sun.
She knew time was running out as she trekked through one of the most sparsely populated and remote places in the world.
However, through incredible luck, she managed to survive, finding a road where she was spotted by a local and delivered to safety.
It’s a rare tale of survival for someone who was missing for so long in difficult terrain. Western Australia acting Det Insp Jessica Securo said it was an “incredible result”, after a multi-day search of the vast bushland about 200 miles northeast of Perth involving homicide police, planes and helicopters, as well as local residents.
“It’s sheer luck. The area out there, there’s mixed terrain. It can be quite dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing or where you are going. It’s very easy to get lost in that area,” Det Insp Securo said.
“She’s essentially out in the wilderness for about 11 nights, which is significant, and just brings us back to how lucky she was that she was located safe and well, and how thankful we are that we managed to find her.”
The 26-year-old German backpacker had been living in Western Australia (WA) for two years, and was heading on a trip towards the country’s east with no concrete plans beyond exploring new places, police said.
She drove through the town of Beacon, on the edge of WA’s Wheatbelt region, stopping at a general store for some supplies. Driving into the vast Karroun Hill nature reserve, her Mitsubishi Delica got bogged in wet sand about 35 km from the nearest road.
Ms Wilga tried to get it out, using the van’s recovery boards and planks of wood, but nothing appeared to work. She spent a night with the vehicle, but without phone reception, she decided to try to search for help and quickly became lost.
After that, she decided to follow the sun, walking west to try to find any sign of other human life.
Western Australia is vast. The largest Australian state, covering more than 2.5 million sq km, it’s more than half of the area of the European Union. It is also sparsely populated: more than two-thirds of the state’s 3 million residents live in the capital of Perth, and much of the state is farmland, mining, or nature.
Ms Wilga faced bad weather – nights got extremely cold, police said, and without her vehicle she was totally exposed to the elements. It also rained heavily for a couple of days.
However, Det Insp Securo said it was good that it was not too hot – temperatures in the state can exceed 40 degrees Celsius in summer.
Rescuers had held grave fears for Ms Wilga’s survival after so long in the wilderness. The German backpacker is the second person to have gone missing in the area in the last 12 months.
Barry Podmore, 73, has been missing since December after going gold prospecting at Karroun Hill, according to the ABC.
His vehicle was found abandoned about 40km north of Beacon by police in May, but no trace of the man has been found.
Det Insp Securo said people who live in WA know it is a vast and at times dangerous place.
“It can be quite challenging to survive in those areas if you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re doing,” she said.
“So all we can advise people to do is invest in things like personal locator beacons, where you may be able to raise emergency services if you come into trouble, trouble you know, share your travel plans with your loved ones. Plan your destinations and then make contact with those persons when you arrive in one.”
Her other tip for people who run into trouble like Ms Wilga is for people to stay with their vehicle.
“It’s far easier for an aerial search to locate a vehicle than it is a person,” she said.
Ms Wilga’s vehicle was found first, a day before she was spotted on the road by a local just 24 km from her abandoned van.
“She was very traumatised and just overwhelmed to be able to found someone that could help her,” said the detective inspector, who spoke to Ms Wilga in hospital on Saturday morning.
“Look, she’s good. She’s very fatigued. She’s had a good night’s sleep, she’s had a shower. We’ve got her some food, which was a massive relief for her. So she’s just taken it one day at a time at the moment.”
Receiving treatment for her minor injuries, including many mosquito bites, as well as emotional support, Ms Wilga remains in hospital and has been in contact with her family in Germany.
But despite remaining overwhelmed by her ordeal, det insp Securo said the backpacker has no plans at the moment to leave Australia.
“Carolina has told me that she loves Australia. She still has so much travel to do here. She hasn’t made it over to the East Coast yet, so that’s still on her bucket list. So I think if she has the ability to stay, she definitely will.”
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