Outback Survival

OUTBACK SURVIVAL MY FIRST CHALLENGE

with BOB COOPER

At the age of seventeen years I put myself on my first survival challenge, although I didn’t know that at the time.

The idea was to walk along the coastline from Perth to Yanchep and explore the National Park. Yanchep was then a tiny town along the coast about 65km north of Perth. I had the front page from a 1970 street directory as a map, two litres of water, lots of tinned food, a loaf of bread and a sleeping bag all stuffed into a shoulder strap Navy kit bag. It was my summer school holidays and I walked off unaware and unafraid of anything. As the day grew hotter things changed. By lunch time it was 38°C (100°F) and I was out of water and had two sunburnt legs from wearing shorts. I was starting to feel unwell and I was very concerned about having no water. The food weighed me down making walking on the beach sand terribly hard. So by late afternoon I buried 90% of my tucker on top of a sand dune and marked the spot for future recovery – it’s still all there, somewhere. That night with a burning sensation on my legs and face and with accompanying blistered lips, combined with a dehydrated body I was concerned about my future. I was afraid and very alone. I told my mother I would walk up the coastline to Yanchep National Park and explore the bush areas, then in a week’s time hitchhike back to Perth. No-one was coming to look for me for at least a week. The more I thought about that, the more I felt that I was in deep trouble, having no water and not knowing if there was any water ahead of me. In my ignorance, I waited until sunrise to move off and missed a few hours of really cool time to walk, saving my sweat and no burning sunlight. By 10am the hot easterly wind was in full force, blowing the bleached white sand so hard that it actually stung as it sandblasted my sunburnt legs. The effort to walk on the harder, firm, wet beach sand was becoming arduous due to my weakening dehydrated condition. The sun was hot again and there was zero shade. I started thinking and believing that I could perish. At that dismal moment, I don’t know what made me look up to my right but I did, and “thanks to all the Gods” I spotted the roof of a shack. It was a squatter’s fishing shack hidden behind the first line of sand dunes with a rain water tank on the side. What a relief and a lifesaver - drinking water and shade. I drank so much water I felt sick. I went inside the shack, it was neat and tidy. I made a cup of black coffee on the gas stove, which ran from cylinders outside and then rested on one of the single-wire bunks until late afternoon. I robbed the rubbish bin of some old bottles which I rinsed out, filled with water and departed a better and very grateful young man. I slept in the sand dunes that night, this time not so scared but still concerned as I had absolutely no idea how far I had travelled. On day three I found several shacks, topped up water bottles and arrived in Yanchep town-site around lunch time. I walked along the bitumen road to the National Park and slept in a pavilion using one of the toilet rolls as a pillow. The next day I hitched a ride home and the bloke who picked me up found it hard to believe what I had done, as I did, when I retold the story.