Stranded in the Outback: Stuck Fast in Mud

It's late January 2014, deep in the untamed wilds of the south Australian outback, a searing sun bakes the dusty red earth of the desert. Stretching out as far as the eye can see, this immense barren expanse is so inhospitable and so bleakly beautiful that it's more reminiscent of the surface of Mars than planet earth. It isn't somewhere that supports human life easily and few people ever grace the handful of rough dirt tracks that cut across its desolate terrain. Yet, today, inside the hollow of a dried-up creek bed more than 12 miles from the nearest road, something glints in the sunlight, a sudden flash of silver, winking like a newly minted coin. This glare comes from the bonnet of a large stationery car. It is resting at an odd angle. Its wheels submerged in a quagmire of sticky, foul-smelling silt. Kneeling beside the vehicle are four mud splattered figures. 30-year-old Brendan Cook wrestles a rusty piece of scrap metal beneath one of the tyres, sweat trickling down his neck. He sits back on his heels and bats a thick swarm of flies away from his face as one of his companion's climbs into the driver's seat. The engine growls and the tyres spin, sending mud and silt spraying through the arid air. Brendan holds his breath as the car lurches forward, straining to pull itself out of the bog. A few seconds later, it rolls backwards again. The strategy was we would try and find anything that would hold weight and get it under the tyre so it wouldn't sink, so to spread the weight of the wheel out, the tyre would jump onto it. But because the mud was so thick and slushy, every time they got on the log with a rock or the steel, it would just push it down the dirt into the slush. Brendan wipes a filthy hand across his parched lips and glances at the empty endless horizon. Brendan grits his teeth and sets to work again. As the hours stalk past and the car stubbornly refuses to budge, the atmosphere amongst the four travellers changes, sliding from hope to desperation. By now they've been stranded for almost 48 hours. They have little food left and more critically, only a few remaining mouthfuls of water each. In an environment as harsh and alien as this, that isn't going to sustain them for long. But with no way of communicating their distress and no likelihood of being found by chance, the only option they have is to save themselves. The stress had set in and the conversation moved from enjoying it against others' company and enjoying the outback to being able to survive all, and one of the next steps, one of the things we needed to do now, to preserve ourselves the next day, and what's the critical decisions we need to make to get ourselves out of here. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extra ordinary situations. People suddenly forced a fight for their lives. In this episode we meet Brendan Cook. In 2014 the experienced outdoorsman takes a trip with his partner Mel and their two friends along the legendary Birdsville track, one of Australia's most isolated and untraveled outback roads. But an unusual series of events results in their car becoming stuck fast in silt and mud, resisting all efforts to be freed and sinking further with every attempt to extract it. The more we dug, the more it messed it became of it. When we moved the car quite a few metres, every time we moved it we would get more stuck and more stuck. Stranded in the fierce heat of the Australian outback, Brendan and his companions must find a way of freeing their car before their dwindling food and water supplies run out entirely. Because the hours and days pass without success, their only remaining options appear drastic and dangerous. We'd realise that this wasn't an unusual situation that we'd feel as sold out of the main time of the fall, we'd realise that we'd sort of exhaust our options and we were done. I'm John Hopkins. From the Noise of Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories. It's late January 2014. In Australia it's the height of summer. At all across the country, people are gearing up to celebrate Australia Day with a long weekend full of parties, barbecues and community gatherings. It's a time when friends and family come together, wanting to mark their country's official national day with those they love most. But in Rock Speed Downs, a small isolated town in South Australia, some 350 miles north of Adelaide, a large silver car crunches along a dusty road heading away from civilisation. Inside the air conditioned vehicle is 30 year old Brendan Cook, his partner Mel and their two friends, a couple named Matt and again Mel. Rather than joining in the town's traditional celebrations, this force them have a different plan in mind. Having advantage of the long weekend, they're off on a road trip to the iconic town of Birdsville, nearly 450 miles further north. It's a mark on the map where if you're on the outdoors, you venture a sort of person, you've been to birds, you've driven the birds full track. That's one of the adventures you've been on as an Australian who does those kind of things. It's on your bucket list of stuff to do anyway, so yeah, we've got to do that, we live right at the end of birds full track, let's do it. It's a journey which will take them right through the heartland of some of Australia's most spectacular and challenging scenery. Originally opened in the 1860s to move cattle, the Birdsville track hasn't changed much in the intervening years. It is among the most isolated routes in the country and with only a few places to refuel and by supplies along the way, it's possible to travel for hours or even days without encountering another car or person. The track itself is famously rough to drive, but for Brendan, Mel and their friends this challenge is part of the appeal. There's a few roadhouses on the way, we knew there's a few lamar, I think the seatings are due, there's a road untraveled grass, so it's an adventure, why not, get time to kill. Brendan's love of adventure is intrinsic to his character and stems from a childhood spent in a small, outbacked community in New South Wales. I really grew my passion to the outdoors, we used to catch crayfish and catch rabbits and chase pigs around the bush, we lived a very adventurous life as young boys, so that's probably where my desire to be in the outdoors came from. Brendan's passion for the natural world led him to study environmental science at university. He spent some time working as a zookeeper, before becoming a consultant for a company specialising in wild left management around airports. The job took him across the globe, but whilst exciting and rewarding, the frequent travelling had its drawbacks. When after a few years, Brendan and his childhood sweetheart Mel started talking about settling down and raising a family, he began looking for work closer to home. It was then that he found a job in rock speed downs, running a small airport connected to a nearby mining company. Though the area's isolation would put some people off, for Brendan and Mel, it was part of the appeal. We loved adventure at the time, it was something new, we thought this would be cool, we live in the outbacked spirit of moat, we liked forward driving and camping and hunting and being on the bush, so if we couldn't have thought of a better place to live and we moved there, sort of side unseen, and it was a first of a world of a shock because you're a long way from anywhere, nothing there, right, it's just in the middle of nowhere. So the first few months of our life were like, what have we done, why are we here? Soon though, Brendan and Mel began to make friends, perhaps unsurprisingly they found that many of rock speed downs inhabitants shared their passion for adventure. When not working, they spent all their time in the bush, reveling in the wild beauty of the landscape. Always been the outdoors, there's always really in job assault being the bush being our animals and being our wildlife and wild places just love the experience. I'm a pretty passionate bird watcher. When I first started dating my wife, we would go camping in the back of the yut and drive to remote places, take the dogs and go hunting or fishing or just camping and just enjoy it and cook by the fire and sip by the fire and do nothing, and that's being the source of our sort of weekend and entertainment film, 30 years. August on the Noiser Podcast Network. Jane Austen's stories turns. This time, Dame Julie Andrews will be reading another beloved classic, "Emma." Step into the village of Hybril, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse. Witness the delicate art of matchmaking, where appearances can deceive, and true affections are not always easily guessed. On short history of, we're herring around the world with the groundbreaking journalist Nellie Blie and grappling with the surreal with Salvador Dali. On real survival stories, we're in the shark-filled waters of the coast of Florida and trundling down the bird's wheel track, deep in the Australian bush. And in Sherlock Holmes' short stories, Holmes investigates the disappearance of a missing star rugby player in the adventure of the missing three-quarter. Get all of these shows and more early and add free on Noiser Plus. On the bird's wheel track, the atmosphere inside Brendan's silver land cruises, upbeats, and happy. Having taken a few extra days off work on top of the long weekend, the group is looking forward to taking the drive slow. They intend to break the journey up and camp out under the stars at night, thereby giving themselves plenty of time to drink in the area's stunning scenery and range of wildlife. The environment's very harsh, there's few creeks and waterways in between. It's mostly long straight roads between the sea and June areas. So you've got these quite a mess, hard stony earth areas, and lots of birds like to the places of the line. One of the reasons we're up there is that a lot of rain that year and a lot of wildlife comes into that environment in the centre of Australia after rain, so it's abundant wildlife. If you've got kangaroos and coquetos and all kinds of amazing pigeons and other small birds everywhere, so the place seems like. But despite the desolate beauty of this terrain, it isn't the most comfortable of journeys. It was hot and it was summer time, so it was really hot every day, it was 45 degrees plus, so you couldn't really be out of the car in the sunlight and enjoy it that long because it was so bloody hot. So you sort of day it was broke up between driving, air conditioning, driving, to be found something, get out, have lunch, enjoy the lake or enjoy whatever it could be, the bush, saw some camels, you know, all that kind of stuff. Get back in the car and then it's from in the car until dark, where there was no flies, I actually got a photo of me eating a grain, granny's meat apple, I'm taking a bite out of it and my hand is like a black glove with flies over it. So it's a challenging place to be regardless of what adventure you're on, it's just a really rough place to be. Even with four-wheel drive, the unsealed road takes its toll on their car and ends up shredding one of the tires. They are forced to stop and change it by the roadside in the sweltering heat. In three days of driving, they only spot a handful of other vehicles, so it's a timely reminder that if something goes wrong out here, there is nobody to offer help. It's no surprise then that when they finally reach the town of Birdsville, the forceome are in a celebratory mood. We've done it, we arrived at the Central Confirmation here, we got here, it's great. We went to the pub a few beers. As well as enjoying Birdsville's pub, the gang explore the local area, replace their spare tire, replenish their supplies of food and water and try the town's famous camel pie. But despite its reputation, it's a small place and it doesn't take long to enjoy all that Birdsville has to offer. Within a day or two, the group is ready to set out for home. There's not much there, no people there. It was just as much about the journey it was the destination, so we've got the Birdsville, you'll realise what it was there, there's not not there, and we really didn't expect a lot. It was as we expected. We saw the sights and decided to head off. It's mid-afternoon, a couple of days later. A dusty silver car bounces over the gritty surface of the Birdsville track, the merciless summer sun beating down upon it. Inside Brendan, Mel and their two friends scan the endless ochre landscape unfolding around them. So far, their return journey has passed without a hitch, and now just five or six hours away from Roxby Downs, they're searching for somewhere to camp for their final night in the outback. They aren't far from Cooper Creek, one of the area's major rivers. Dry for much of the year, when it floods, it's been known to make the Birdsville track impossible, forcing drivers into a significant detour to an old ferry crossing. Given the current weather though, there's no doubt the creek will be dry, and its parched banks could make an ideal campground. Decision made, the group turns off the main road and onto a small dirt track leading towards the creek, ignoring a road-closed sign as they do so. You don't really take notice of science back. We knew that river crossing and that flood plane was there. We knew that's where it would have been, and it was the nicest place within a few hundred kilometres of where we should camp that night. So there was no logic around. Is there danger in the science? Should we go around it? It was like, I know it's there, it's just a sign for a science sake, it was nothing more than that. Like, you don't really obey that sort of stuff in Australia. It's not like a well-managed suburban ride. Someone put it there for some reason, and it's probably been there for years, and everybody's dropping it up. There was no more to it than that. When they arrive, the beauty of the spot takes their breath away. Stretching out before them is an enormous sway that dried up floodplains, punctuated by the hollow of the desiccated creek bed, now blanketed in a hard layer of sun-baked silt and mud. Nearby lies an old barge that would have once been used to ferry cars over the flooded river. Now it slowly rusts, disintegrating into the scorched earth. As the sun slides below the horizon, Brendan and his companions make the most of their final night and the outback together. They eat and drink liberally, leaving just enough to get them to their next refueling stop the following day. As darkness sets in, someone suggests they take the car out to spot lighting. A method of finding wildlife at night using the powerful glare of torches to catch the animal's eyeshine. We got the car ahead of our spot lighting, and we hadn't driven too far. We were driving around looking for things in the grass, some of the jins, and we saw a few things we can't remember what we were seeing. And then we just got out of sorts. We knew where the camp was, we didn't realise where we were, in relation to the boat, in relation to the rebellion, just driving out all of a sudden the car just immediately sunk into the mud. The car lurches, as the ground suddenly gives way beneath it. Unbeknownst to Brendan and his companions, they've driven too close to the middle of the creek bed, where beneath its sun-baked crust, the ground is soft and boggy. With this crust now broken, it only takes seconds for the wheels to sink into a thick, sticky, silt underneath. The engine strains, the tires spinning uselessly as they try to gain traction, sending mud splattering backwards. The vehicle is stuck fast. It will be easy to panic in this situation, but Brendan's outback experience means he is in fact no stranger to extracting his car from bogs and sand dunes. It's too dark to attempt anything now, but come morning, they should have no trouble in freeing the vehicle. It wasn't a feeling of urgency, it wasn't really a feeling of stress at all, realise what bogs, got it out, really mad, that's fine. Right, we saw it out tomorrow, then just jumped out of the car and walked off to the camp. They retreat into their tents and sleep, one perturbed by this turn of events. When the sun rises the next day, they wake and head over to deal with the car. Daylight reveals that it stranded about 50 or 60 metres away from the bank, and as they approach the vehicle, it quickly becomes clear the situation is far, far worse than they had anticipated. When they look at the car, they realise it's really bogged, it's really, really bogged. Shocked to discover, their car has sunk up to its axles in the silt of the creek bed, the group quickly began digging to try and free its wheels. They scoop large clumps of claggy, viscous mud away, trying not to gag at the stench. But as they work, it soon becomes apparent that their efforts are only making things worse. The mud flat there was quite hard on top because of the baking sun, but as soon as you crack the surface, the silt below was really thick and really horribly stay line and disgusting and stinky and sticky. Now we moved the car, quite a few metres, and so the more we dug, the more the mess it became of it. Maybe it's only moved it when we get more stuck and more stuck. This August, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Jane Austen's story is returns. This time, Dame Julie Andrews will be reading another beloved classic, Emma, stepped into the village of hybrid, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse, witnessed the delicate art of matchmaking, where appearances can deceive, and true affections are not always easily guessed. On short history of, we're herring around the world with the groundbreaking journalist Nelly Blie and grappling with the surreal with Salvador Dali. On real survival stories, we're in the shark-filled waters of the coast of Florida and [BLANK_AUDIO] down the birdsville track, deep in the Australian bush. And in Sherlock Holmes' short stories, Holmes investigates the disappearance of a missing star rugby player in "The Adventure of the Missing 3/4". Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on "Noiser Plus". Part of their emergency equipment includes max tracks recovery boards, textured plastic planks designed to wedge beneath car wheels to help stranded vehicles gain traction. But the ground around the car is now so soft, even these aren't helping. The tracks weren't really working out well and were digging to nowhere, essentially it was a lost effort, essentially a whole day. We went into the dive, we were exhausted, we were covering this horrible mud, we never got a lot of water left, we never got a food left, we thought we were early in the year, and got as clean as we could, went to bed and thought, "Next day we'll have another crack at it". The following morning, the group rises bright and early to get some work done before the heat of the day sets in. Having expected to be back in civilisation by now, their food and water supplies are running dangerously low, and the general mood is significantly more downcast than the previous day. Something that they need a change of tactic, the force them use a small toolkit to start taking apart the old barge nearby. They drag rusty poles and pieces of scrap metal over to their bogged car, along with rocks, tree branches, and anything else they can wedge beneath its tyres. Basically the strategy was, we would try and find anything that would hold weight and get it under the tyres so I wouldn't sink, spread the weight of the wheel out, the tyre would jump onto it, but because they're mad with sight, they can slash the image on the log or the rock or the steel, they would just push it down the dirt into the slash. As the day drags on and the temperature continues to rise, the situation begins to look dire. They now have virtually no food or water left, and although they try occasionally to pick up a signal on their radio, they're so far from civilisation that it's no use. However, they do seem to have a shred of luck on their side. Two or three miles away, what appears to be a large black water tank is just about visible in the distance. It's likely a container used to store water with a vast cattle paddock strewn across the outback. And if it is, right now, it could be a lifesaver. It was very well in really full of stress they took out water, because they saw the tank and we thought, "Ah, we water over there, even though we've got no water." And we senselessly believed that we'd find some water, and that was sort of the backup on the road out of water. We'll just go for a walk out there. A shud in the belief that should they fail to extract the car today, they can at least replenish their water supplies at the tank. The group doggedly continues their work on the vehicle. They grapple with the tyres, sweat running down their backs, the smudgy mud smearing their arms and legs. And their discomforts don't end there. There's moments where the flies are that bad, you have to wear a fly hood, so it's basically a mesh hood that goes over your head, where you can walk around in the day and not have your eyes and nose and ears from part of its flies, and those flies are really small flies. And they're trying to get into your body, like they're trying to get into your eye suckers and get into your nose and get your ears in your mouth. They're trying to actively enter you, and that's disgusting. When the heat eventually becomes too intense, Brendan and his companions are forced to retreat to the shade to try and rest as best they can. But even that proves to be difficult. You laying down, he's one of the rest, he can't, because this flies a lot of you so the fly hood goes on, and I'm with the fly hoods on, they're still on the hood, they're still on this mesh material trying to get at you, it's very uncomfortable, so it's relentless. In the late afternoon when you've been having all the flies all day, you really look forward to night when they all go away, you really start counting the clock, counting the hours down before sunset when you know they're not going to be there. However, as the hours pass, the irritation of the flies gives way to an even greater concern, the issue of water. When efforts to extricate the car still yield no results, it's agreed that the two women will walk to the water tank to replenish supplies. Meanwhile exhausted and parched, Brendan and Matt continue their attempts to free the car. As they work, they become increasingly covered in the fettied mud, but the prospect of rinsing themselves off and quenching their thirst is enough to spur them on. Yet when the two women finally return, their faces are grim. With the Oscar back, I'm like, there's no water, the tank was broken, it's been broken for years. Like, ah, that dreads what it's saying that, you know, what we thought was a sense of relief. Of option was not what we thought it was. It's a soul-crushing blow. They now have just a few mouthfuls of water left each, and no hope of replenishing their supplies. Having already spent hours trying to free the car, and the furnace like heat of the outback, their priorities now shift. The focus turns, defining a way of surviving the next few days. Matt, who was with Hanson Engineer, once you dug a hole, all those bottled water in the hole, but it was hyper-sail on, like, dangerously sail on. He'd made a steel out of a jimbane bottle and a pipe, and he was like trying to boil the water and stand it and go, sure, it was working, but it was not enough for us to survive on. Matt works hard to purify the sail-line water, but all of his efforts spring meager results. Extracting the car from the creek bed now takes on a new level of urgency. But as evening sets in again, it becomes clear, they'll have to spend another night in the outback. We've been the model day two days, and we'll feel free. We had no water to wash ourselves with, and it was back into our skin. We couldn't get off in the girls, but by helping us rub it off with towels or peel it off, and it was ripping our skin. I don't know that feeling, but I'm covered, I'm literally caked in this horrible mud, and I've got a sleep, and that was challenge as well. So by the end of day two, we really realised that this wasn't the usual situation that we've got ourselves out of many times before, we're really in it. When camp that night, the mood is somber. The group has just a few apples and musely bars left, and their clean water supplies are now completely exhausted. Beneath the star-strune sky, with the howls of distant dingos echoing in their ears, they begin assessing their options. Hopefully when they fail to show up at work, their colleagues will raise the alarm. But nobody knows exactly where they are, so there's no telling how long it might take for a rescue mission to find them, if it ever does. In the enormity of the outback, they are just one tiny speck. And with the main road over 12 miles away, the chances of a passing car stumbling on them are basically nonexistent. I'm sitting around the camp that night, I covered in mud, and the fun of the conversation had gone, and we'll really focus on what next, what if, what's the plan B, who's coming to get us, what's going to trigger them to come and get us? I'd say, why that second or the second day, the stress had set in, and the conversation moved from enjoying it against all this company to being able to survive all. One of the things we need to do now, to preserve ourselves the next day, what's the critical decisions we need to make to get ourselves out of here? They don't reach any conclusion that night. Tired, thirsty, and covered in dried mud, they retreat into their tents, and do their best to get some rest. Come morning, the gravity of the situation can't be denied any longer. The next day, they realise we're not going to get in. We sort of stopped doing anything and thinking like, what are we going to do? It becomes clear they only have two options, and both are deeply unappealing. They can wait and hope that rescue comes to them, or they can attempt to walk out and find help. One of the biggest messages when you're in the Outback is, never leave your car. If there's a search mission for you, most people that are dead in the Outback are not near their car. They find the car, because the cars are much easier to find from the sky. If you look at Australian Outback fatalities, often the people have left their car, so one of the things that people always say is stay with your car. If we know your loss, we'll look from the sky with a small aircraft and find your car. We won't find you in the Outback, but we'll find your car. So that was in our minds as well, thinking like, well, we shouldn't leave the car, you know? We know the roads 20 kilometres away, we know that that road's very unused. What do we do? We can't just sit here and wait. Whatever they choose, the odds are not in their favour. Eventually the group decide that if come evening, nobody has appeared to rescue them. They will split up. Brendan and Mel will walk back to the Birdsville track and hope they can flag down one of the rare passing motorists. Meanwhile their friends will remain with the bogged car, in case help does eventually come. That was pretty scary, knowing that we decided that the best course of action was someone to stay with the car and others to the walk back to the road. So we came to that conclusion while sitting around in the morning, decided if we can't walk out, it's 40 degrees, it's 20km, we've got no water, and there'll be end of us, so we decided [BLANK_AUDIO] Just lay low, lay in the shade, take it easy and then sort of rest of the hills. Yep, tonight we walk out, we prepare ourselves to walk out that night. Throughout the day, Brendan and Mel try to conserve energy. All the while clinging to the faint hope that rescue might still come to them. But as the sky is darkened and another day fades, it's obvious that it isn't going to happen. In the dead of night, with the temperature lower, they bid farewell to their friends and set out on the long, dark walk back to the road. It was middle of the night, and we're in the back of Australia. You know, there's dingoes around campsite. We heard dingoes at night all walking. It's a terrifying thing to have dingoes near you, howling and probably following you. The rust on the bushes at night, a lot of animals in Australia are all nocturnal. So there's lots of things that scurry across the path and scare the lights out of you. And it's an intimidating place, even though I'm experiencing that space. Yeah, it still is. You're walking out of a stressful situation through a stressful situation to the unknown. I'm not feeling it. I'm probably going to make this walk. This August, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Jane Austin's story is returns. This time, Dame Julie Andrews will be reading another beloved classic, Emma. Step into the village of Hybury, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse. On short history of, we're hairing around the world with the groundbreaking journalist Nelly Blie and grappling with the surreal with Salvador Dali. On real survival stories, we're in the shark-filled waters of the coast of Florida and trundling down the birdsville track, deep in the Australian bush. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. Dimly lit in the eerie glow of the moon, Brendan and Mel trudge forwards the track, unfurling before them like a white ribbon. It's a distance of over 12 miles. It's a huge task, particularly after several days of hard work with little sustenance. The couple will have to rely on past experience to help get them through. We've, you know, walked quite a bit, you know. Time's a pretty big walk, you know, time. So we've been able to walk that far. Like, let's point why he chose the goes that we're used to walk quite a lot. We've always had dogs, reactive dogs. So we've, you know, experienced the walking, you know, 10 Ks on a Sunday morning for fun. And that was pretty normal for us. Nevertheless, being surrounded by the haunting song of the dingos and the unnerving rustles of the undergrowth is undeniably disturbing. Trying to keep their worries at bay, the couple take comfort in each other's company, and the prospect of securing rescue for themselves and their two friends back at camp. We're reassuring each other, providing to the counter. When we get there, we'll find someone who will come past. Those kind of discussions, you know, someone will find us, they'll have water, we're in the middle of the outback. Everybody will have water and food in the car. Hopefully, there's a key echo, but something delicious from the car. So that was the mood of the conversation along the way. It was, you know, kiddie dogs are in good spirits and getting the job done. After several hours, the stars start to fade. And Brendan and Mel reach the roadside just as the sun is rising, staining the sky with streaks of pink and orange. Remember, you know, turning around and taking a few moments and you know that beautiful sunrise. We got there and the sun started to warm up already. So we shared a spot, done some trees, and in fact, we were pretty exhausted and just sat down. And we had an apple and a little small pool of water and try and make it last. In the three days, it took them to drive up the bird's-vill-track. The group encountered only a handful of other cars. It could be hours or perhaps days before someone comes. There is little Brendan and Mel can do in the meantime, but sit beneath the trees and wait. As the sun gathers strength and the temperature increases, they both begin to feel the effects of exhaustion and dehydration. The hours pass in a fuzzy blur. And then sometime in the mid-morning, Brendan and Mel are roused by sound. An engine. And he comes along with the car and we didn't really make it the effort to wave it down. We just thought they would naturally start. I put this down on the solar road and then we knew it would know we were able to be pretty sheveled. So we sort of just like got up and we sort of stand by the solar road and sort of our hands up and go, "Hey, car, they move like the car sort of slowed down." Looked at us and just ran, "Whew, straight past." And the heart broke at that moment, like, "Ugh!" There's like the gobs back in the moment of, "What? What happened? Like, why did they not start?" Like, "We are clearly out of sorts." The car speeds off into the distance. And within seconds, it's disappeared. Brendan and Mel stare each other in shocked, horrified silence. Their chance of rescue gone. Initially, they are bewildered. But then a possible explanation comes to them. So Australia has a long history of heat shockers and people traveling freely through the country. But has some pretty damning history in relation to those types of people using that space as well. There's been a number of serial killers who have targeted heat shockers and backpackers across the country, which has led to the Wolf Creek series of movies, a whole range of stories and struggles and vitalities of people in the outback who have met or come across people who are undesirable than who have taken the advantage of them. There is a rule since, I think, for people from the big cities traveling the outback of, "Who are you going to come across? This is a dangerous place." It's a troubling realization. There is no telling whether Brendan and Mel will even see another car today. And if they do, there's evidently no guarantee that it will stop. We'd probably be past half a dozen cars and days of travel on that track. It's not like it's the state highway where cars are traveling back and forth all the time. Can you make it all right? Can you make it all right and actually make it? Weakened by a lack of food and water and exhausted after their long, nocturnal walk, lethargy begins to steal over the couple. They drag some tree branches and an old sign onto the road in the hopes that should they fall asleep, the obstacles will slow any passing vehicles, giving them a chance to wake up and ask for help. After that, they retreat to the shade of the trees and wait. With the sun blazing overhead, they lean back against a rough bark and close their eyes. Ravaged by the hardships of the last few days, it isn't long before both of them start to drift. It's a few hours later. Brendan and Mel lie slumped in the shade of a gnarled old tree. Their bodies weary, their minds hazy. The sun burns mercilessly overhead, beating down on the long empty road. Suddenly, something jerks the couple back to full consciousness. I remember the urgency of the second car turning up hours later. It was like quite a real moment, but it was like this real instant pleasure rush. I'm like, "I can't see any of the cars going over there." They were jumping out of the road, waving, waving, like being frantic, and at this car stopping, and it was a couple from Sydney. The car grinds to a halt, and the people inside crack the window open. Their faces tense and wary. Desperately, Brendan and Mel explain their predicament and beg to be allowed into the vehicle. But the couple inside refuse. Like the passengers in the previous car, they too are concerned about these haggard strangers and their incredulous tale. However, after some argument, a compromise is eventually reached. The couple from Sydney will go and investigate Brendan and Mel's bogged car, and then return to them. After handing over some bottles of water, they drive off, leaving the couple alone once again. Finally, after a couple of hours, they hear the blessed sound of not just one engine, but two. It seems their rescuers have not only found their friends and the car, but they've been able to tow the stranded vehicle out of the creek bed. The release of hearing the cars coming, and you can definitely hear it was two cars coming, and seeing that car lead out our car, which was covered in mud, and it had been pulled out of the mud. The sense of the release of joy, and then. In celebration then, because then obviously they realise we're really stuck, realise we're good people, and we're genuine. We sat for quite a while, and they fed us some food, we got some water, and we sat in the road and joked, and laughed, and enjoyed it to this company in a way. After saying a grateful goodbye to their rescuers, Brendan, Mel and their friends have just one thing they want to do. They drive to a pub a few hours away, and sit down to enjoy a large meal and some cold drinks. Whilst regaling the bartender with the story of their brush with death. Telling the story of having a laugh and having a tea that realise we're safe, you know, we'd made it. And then getting back in the car and driving the last three hours, over that last stretch, after the celebration, and we've gotten out of here, the last three hours home was quite silence. It was just get home, get done. when they finally arrive back. back in Roxby Downs, they're shocked to learn that nobody has raised the alarm about their disappearance because nobody knew what their plans had been. For Brendan, it's a sobering discovery and teaches him a valuable lesson. The things we took away from that is my wife and I habitually now tell each other where we're going. So I still spend a lot of time at the bush and I'll routinely, without fault, to last tech soul center is, I am here, I am going here, I expect to be out of this time. Here's the closest point of contact, here's where the car could be, all those details that I expect to be out in three days. So that real clear message is, if I'm not back by Monday or whatever day it is, that's the point of failure. So really making sure that your loved ones, someone in your household, some of your family knows what your plan is and if you're not back, that's the point of action. And that isn't the only safety precaution he now takes as a result of his experience in the outback. I'm very rarely go in running environments on my own, it's always two cars, always take two cars. And maybe it was just you and your friend, take two cars because if one gets stuck, your chances of all of the two cars is far better. So you should really never, is traveling a single convoy in dangerous situations and that was less than a bug because it wasn't below. Now married and living in New Zealand with their two sons, Brendan and Mel continue to enjoy their outdoor pursuits as a family. When I'm adventuring in New Zealand or in Australia, I'm much more cautious about the situation of the scenario I put myself in with my boys. I've been caught out a few times in the past where you think you're okay or not. So I'd say I'm much more reserved now around the level of risk when I'm in the back or in any sort of wall, place, much more conservative about the risk judgment of the scenario. More than a decade on from being stranded in the outback, Brendan puts their survival down to their ability to remain calm in difficult circumstances, to make logical, rational decisions. This ability to keep his cool and tackle problems step by step once helped to save his life and now he is passing that lesson down the generations alongside his continued love for adventure and wild places. I think that trust in yourself, that trust in your decision-making and that ability to control your emotions and not let fear overcome your rational thinking is critical, a survival scenario you're in, that ability just to breathe and say, okay, we're in strife, what do we need to do, that logical thinking with a car mind is really important. I think that's probably what got us through a logical way to get out and to sort of test all the options to getting out prior to the walk and the success of the roadside. It was about putting one foot in front of the other and just thinking about logically and something I say my boys all the time now. How do you eat the elephant? You know, my wife at the time just just thinking about it in a very step by step, you know. Next time on real survival stories, catastrophe unfolds on one of the deadliest mountains on Earth, the mighty Kate too. In the summer of 2008, Dutch climber Wilcoe Van Royen is leading an expedition up the world's second tallest mountain. But after a successful ascent to the summit, the journey down spirals into chaos when a massive icefall leaves the climbers stranded without fixed ropes. Wilcoe and his teammates will find themselves trapped at extreme life-sapping altitude in an area known as the Death Zone. There is a limitation for every human being because we can't survive at 8 km high. There is a lack of oxygen you will die. The only question is, what kind of period can you survive? Time is running out, and soon it won't just be the dizzying altitude that Wilcoe is contending with. When a hasty decision robs him of one of his senses, he will be forced to make a drastic, death-defying choice. This next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen today without waiting and without ads by Joining Noiser Plus. This August, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Jane Austen's stories returns. This time Dame Julie Andrews will be reading another beloved classic, Emma. Step into the village of Hybril, home to the handsome and clever Emma Woodhouse. On short history of, we're herring around the world with the groundbreaking journalist Nellie Bly and grappling with the surreal with Salvador Dali. On Real Survival Stories, we're in the shark-filled waters of the coast of Florida and trundling down the bird's-vill-track deep in the Australian bush. And all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.