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.
