What to do if you’re lost in the Australian bush – and other amazing stories of survival | Australia news
This week Hadi Nazari was found alive after being lost in the remote Kosciuszko national park for almost two weeks.
Nazari survived in some of Australia’s most unforgiving terrain by drinking creek water, foraging for berries and – fortuitously – finding two muesli bars in a remote hut.
On Wednesday, the 23-year-old stumbled into the path of a group of hikers and called out to them for help. He was taken to hospital and treated for dehydration before being discharged on Friday.
Here, experts explain how to prepare for a hike, and what to do if you become “geographically embarrassed”.
Be prepared
Kevin Newton, the owner of Australian Survival Instructors owner, says Nazari did “really well” during his two-week ordeal.
In similar situations “a lot of people just give up mentally and sort of will themselves to not wake up again”.
There are precautions hikers can take to reduce the likelihood of getting lost – and help searchers find them faster if they do wander off their planned route.
Hikers should carry a satellite phone or personal locator beacon at all times when heading into remote areas where there is often no mobile phone service, Newton says.
Pack food, at least 2 litres of water per person, a first aid kit, a topographic map and a compass, the National Parks and Wildlife Service advises.
The Trek protocol NPWS promotes alongside New South Wales police refers to “take” enough food, water and equipment; “register” your trip; have an “emergency” personal locator beacon and “keep” to your planned route.
Victoria police shares similar advice including “asking advice from experienced walkers and local authorities” before heading into the wilderness.
NPWS urges hikers to tell family or friends about their planned route and expected return. Newton urges hikers to always stay with their group.
If going off track, even for a moment, “navigate so you don’t get lost,” Newton says. “You can do that visually with spatial awareness or you can do it with devices such as compasses or GPS.”
Breadcrumbing with piles of rocks or notching trees with a knife can also help when backtracking later.
“Backtracking is much better than going ahead – hopefully you’ll come across something” you recognise, Newton says.
What if you plan the work, and work the plan, but still get lost?
If you don’t have a working emergency communication device, prioritise finding warmth and water, Newton says. Exposure is the first thing that kills people. The second is a lack of water.
Newton says Nazari was fortunate he was lost in summer in a landscape where it was “easy enough to find water in low spots”. The Melbourne medical student could sit in the shade during the day.
Search teams discovered the remnants of a campfire area and Nazari also stumbled across a remote hut where he could shelter to stay warm overnight.
The 23-year-old appeared to have moved along water courses when lost, says Caro Ryan, a hiking safety advocate involved in the State Emergency Service search for Nazari.
“Bits of evidence that our teams were finding were … showing us he was traveling through all the side creeks,” she told ABC radio on Friday.
“You can survive a long time without food, but water – especially in the temperatures that we had down there – is absolutely essential.”
Nazari had prepared for a multi-day hike so he had a tent that also allowed him to stay out of the elements.
“The main thing going to kill them is the cold, so straight up they need to think about shelter, getting out of the weather, and not having their core temperature get down,” Newton says.
If lost in a hot or desert environment, search for somewhere cool, he advises. “Some regions will have rocky outcrops, and quite often you can actually find little crevices and cracks to crawl into.”
Ryan says “staying put” is a “really good strategy” if you’re carrying a shelter and people at home know your intended route.
“Because you’ve told someone where you are going, we know where to come and look and find you.”
What can we learn from previous survival stories?
Newton says there are hundreds of Australian stories that stick with him – often “for the wrong reasons”. Here are a few that gripped the nation.
Kiki in Kosciuszko
Snowy Mountains resident Lovisa Sjoberg, known as Kiki, was lost in Kosciuszko for six days just months before Nazari.
The then-48-year-old suffered a suspected copperhead snake bite, had rolled her ankle and was dehydrated. Sjoberg was “pretty fortunate to be alive,” Supt Toby Lindsay said after she was rescued.
Sjoberg had left no indication of where she was planning to travel and that made the search more difficult.
The alarm was raised by a car hire company when she missed the car return deadline and could not be contacted. The car was found at a heritage-listed former courthouse at an old gold mining town in the Kosciuszko national park.
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Over the next six days, a search ensued by foot, vehicle, horseback, plane and helicopter, involving more than half a dozen different agencies as well as locals.
Sjoberg was found by a NPWS officer on the Nungar Creek trail at Kiandra. It was likened to finding a “needle in a haystack”.
Non-verbal autistic teenager missing for two freezing nights
William Callaghan, 14, was found alive after almost 48 hours missing on Mount Disappointment north of Melbourne for two freezing nights in 2020.
He was separated from his family when he raced ahead of them while walking to the summit of the hiking spot.
William was wearing only track pants and a hoodie as overnight temperatures dropped to near-freezing.
More than 500 volunteers, police and emergency services searched for William nonstop, being advised to play the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song in hopes he would seek it out.
Local bushman Ben Gibbs, who grew up in the area and considers Mount Disappointment his “family mountain,” found William off the main track – deeper in the bush than previous searches had probed.
“I was just wandering through the bush, it was quite thick, so I was breaking my way through it,” he told Nine News at the time.
“He was just about 15 metres from me just standing there, just really angelic, just standing there. I heard that he liked Thomas the Tank [Engine] so I just talked to him about Diesel and Bertie and stuff like that … just to calm him down.”
Seventy days eating frogs and snakes
Workers on a remote cattle station came across the skeletal form of Ricky Megee, 35, who is said to have survived in the outback for two-and-a-half months eating frogs, snakes and lizards after a mysterious attack in 2006.
Megee was suffering from severe malnutrition and exposure and told his rescuers the last thing he remembered was his car breaking down along the Buntine Highway near the Northern Territory and Western Australia border.
Megee told the ranchers he drank water from a dam where he built a shelter and caught and ate frogs, lizards and snakes.
Mark Clifford, who managed the Birrindudu cattle station, said the area was one of the “most isolated places in Australia” and that the wet season was to thank for Megee’s survival.
The story was one of both survival and mystery – police never found his car.
American tourist on a spiritual quest
In 1999, Alaskan firefighter Robert Bogucki was found alive after disappearing for 40 days in West Australia’s Great Sandy desert – one of the most hostile in the world.
Tourists who found his bicycle near a roadhouse on WA’s coastal highway raised the alarm. Indigenous trackers and police searched but failed to find any sign of Bogucki, and the search was called off after two weeks – a controversial decision. Some believed the tourist had died in the arid scrubland while others felt the search should continue.
Bogucki’s parents requested a US rescue squad continue the search – and so entered Vietnam veteran Garrison St Clair. Known in the US as a mantracker, St Clair entered Broome in a camouflage kit and demanded equipment for his tracker bloodhounds named Dixie, Radar and Maggie. But Australian media saved Bogucki’s life.
An Australian television journalist shadowing the American crew noticed Bogucki’s footprints heading into the Edgar ranges, 230km south-east of Broome. Days later, a media helicopter spotted Bogucki’s abandoned camp, including a tarpaulin wrapped around a water bottle, a chocolate bar wrapper, a notebook and a Bible.
The next day he was discovered by a television network’s helicopter.
Asked how he was, Bogucki said: “I’m hungry, I’m tired.”
In his time in the desert, he covered almost 400km. “I do feel satisfied I scratched that itch, whatever it was,” he said from his hospital bed, suggesting he entered the outback on a spiritual quest. “God’ll take care of you, I guess.”
