Stranded in the Outback: Stuck Fast in Mud

Brendan Cook, his partner Mel and two of their friends take a trip along the legendary Birdsville Track - one of Australia’s most notorious outback roads. But an unusual series of events results in their vehicle getting stuck in silt and mud, sinking further with every attempt to extract it. As the sun beats down, Brendan and his companions must free their car before their dwindling food and water supplies run out entirely. But as the hours and days pass without success, their only remaining options appear drastic and dangerous… A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. Written by Heléna Lewis | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Interview by Joe Viner | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound Supervisor: Matt Peaty | Sound design by Jacob Booth | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:47John Hopkins?

  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.

• 1:31John Hopkins?

  A sudden flash of silver, winking like a newly minted coin. This glare comes from the bonnet of a large stationary 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. Thirty-year-old Brendan Cook wrestles a rusty piece of scrap metal beneath one of the tires, sweat trickling down his neck. Panting, he sits back on his heels and bats a thick swarm of flies away from his face as one of his companions climbs into the driver's seat.

• 2:14John Hopkins?

  The engine growls and the tires 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.

• 2:32Speaker 05

  The strategy was, we would try and find anything that would hold weight and get it under the tires so it wouldn't sink, sort of spread the weight of the wheel out. The tire would jump onto it, but because the mud was so thick and slushy, every time they got on the log or the rock or the steel, it would just push it down into the dirt, into the slush.

• 2:51John Hopkins?

  Brendan wipes a filthy hand across his parched lips and glances at the empty, endless horizon. Then he 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 travelers 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,

• 3:35John Hopkins?

  the only option they have is to save themselves.

• 3:39Speaker 05

  The stress had set in and the conversation moved from enjoying it against other's company, enjoying the outback, to being about survival and what are the next steps? What are the things we need to do now to preserve ourselves for the next day? And what's the critical decisions we need to make to get ourselves out of here?

• 4:03John Hopkins?

  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 extraordinary situations, people suddenly forced to 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 untravelled outback roads. But an unusual series of events results in their car becoming stuck fast in silt and

• 4:47John Hopkins?

  mud, resisting all efforts to be freed and sinking further with every attempt to extract it.

• 4:55Speaker 05

  The more we dug, the more mess that became of it. We moved the car quite a few meters, but every time we moved it, it would get more stuck and more stuck.

• 5:05John Hopkins?

  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. But as the hours and days pass without success, their only remaining options appear drastic and dangerous.

• 5:25Speaker 05

  We'd realize that this wasn't the usual situation that we've put ourselves out of meantime before. We'd realize that we've sort of exhausted our options and we were done.

• 5:35John Hopkins?

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

• 6:07John Hopkins?

  It's late January 2014. In Australia, it's the height of summer, and 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 Roxby 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 civilization.

• 6:46John Hopkins?

  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 foursome have a different plan in mind. Taking advantage of the long weekend, they're off on a road trip to the iconic town of Birdsville, nearly 450 miles further north.

• 7:10Speaker 05

  It's a mark on the map where if you're an outdoors, adventurous sort of person, you've been to Birdsville, you've driven the Birdsville 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 go and do that. We live right at the end of Birdsville Track, let's do it.

• 7:27John Hopkins?

  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 buy 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.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  There's a few roadhouses on the way. We knew there was a few landmarks, things to see, things to do. It was a road untravelled for us, so it was an adventure. Why not? We had time to kill.

• 8:15John Hopkins?

  Brendan's love of adventure is intrinsic to his character and stems from a childhood spent in a small outback community in New South Wales.

• 8:25Speaker 05

  I really grew my passion for 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.

• 8:39John Hopkins?

  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 wildlife management around airports. The job took him across the globe, but whilst exciting and rewarding, the frequent travelling had its drawbacks.

• 9:02John Hopkins?

  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 Roxby 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.

• 9:26Speaker 05

  We loved adventure at the time. It was something new. We thought, this would be cool, live in the outback, it's pretty remote. We liked to fall driving and camping and hunting and be out in the bush. So if we couldn't have thought of a better place to live, and we moved there, sort of sight unseen, and it was the first of a while it was a shock because you're a long way from anywhere. Nothing there, right? It's just the middle of nowhere. So the first few months of our life, we're like, what have we done? Why are we here?

• 9:49John Hopkins?

  Soon though, Brendan and Mel began to make friends. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they found that many of Roxby 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.

• 10:05Speaker 05

  Always been in the outdoors. I've always really enjoyed myself being in the bush, being around animals and being around 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 ute, drive to remote places, take the dogs and either hunting or fishing or just camping and just enjoy it, have a cook by the fire and sit by the fire with nothing, and that's been the source of our sort of weekend entertainment for 30 years.

• 10:38John Hopkins?

  This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four.

• 11:21John Hopkins?

  Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 11:32John Hopkins?

  On the Birdsville track, the atmosphere inside Brendan’s Silverland Cruiser is upbeat and happy.

• 11:38John Hopkins?

  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.

• 11:56Speaker 05

  The environment’s very harsh. There’s few creeks and waterways in between. It’s mostly long, straight roads between the sand dune areas. So you’ve got these quite immense, hard, stony earth areas, and lots of birds. So the place is alive. One of the reasons we went up there is there was a lot of rain that year, and a lot of wildlife comes into that environment in the centre of Australia after the rain. So it’s abundant with wildlife. You’ve got kangaroos and cockatoos and all kinds of amazing pigeons and other small birds everywhere. So the place seems alive.

• 12:26John Hopkins?

  But despite the desolate beauty of this terrain, it isn’t the most comfortable of journeys.

• 12:34Speaker 05

  It was hot. It was summertime, 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 your day was broken up between driving, air conditioning, driving, till you found something, get out, have lunch, enjoy the lake, or enjoy whatever it could be, the bush, saw some camels, you know, that kind of stuff. Get back in the car, and then strum in the car until dark, where there was no flies. I actually got a photo of me eating a green Granny Smith apple. I’ve taken a bite out of it, and my hand is like a black glove with flies all 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.

• 13:15John Hopkins?

  Even with four-wheel drive, the unsealed road takes its toll on their car and ends up shredding one of the tyres.

• 13:23John Hopkins?

  They are forced to stop and change it by the roadside in the sweltering heat.

• 13:28John Hopkins?

  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.

• 13:42John Hopkins?

  It’s no surprise then that when they finally reach the town of Birdsville, the foursome are in a celebratory mood.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  We’ve done it. We arrived. We’re so confident this year. We got here. It’s great. Went to the pub and a few beers.

• 13:55John Hopkins?

  As well as enjoying Birdsville’s pub, the gang explore the local area, replace their spare tyre, replenish their supplies of food and water, and try the town’s famous camel pie.

• 14:07John Hopkins?

  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.

• 14:17Speaker 05

  There’s not much there. No people there. It was just as much about the journey as it was the destination. So we sort of got to Birdsville, realised what was there. There’s a lot there. And we didn’t expect a lot. It was as we expected. We saw the sights and decided to head off.

• 14:33John Hopkins?

  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.

• 14:46John Hopkins?

  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 impassable, forcing drivers into a significant detour to an old ferry crossing. Given the current weather though, there’s no doubt the creek would be dry, and its parched banks could make an ideal campground.

• 15:28John Hopkins?

  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.

• 15:39Speaker 05

  You don’t really take notice of signs in the back. We knew that that river crossing and that flood plain 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 sign? Should we go around? It was just like, I know it’s there. It’s just a sign for the sign’s 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 road. Someone put it there for some reason, and it’s probably been there for years, and everyone just got to know it. There was no more to it than that.

• 16:19John Hopkins?

  When they arrive, the beauty of the spot takes their breath away. Stretching out before them is an enormous swathe of dried-up flood plains, 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.

• 16:46John Hopkins?

  As the sun slides below the horizon, Brendan and his companions make the most of their final night in the outback together. They eat and drink liberally, leaving just enough to get them to their next refuelling stop the following day. As darkness sets in, someone suggests they take the car out to spotlighting, a method of finding wildlife at night using the powerful glare of torches to catch the animal’s eye shine.

• 17:14Speaker 05

  We got the car and head off spotlighting, and hadn’t driven too far, just driving around looking for things in the grass and on the dunes. And we saw a few things. I can’t remember what we seen. And then we just got out of sorts. We knew where the camp was. We just sort of realised that we were in relation to the boat and motion to the red bed, and just driving out all sudden, the car just immediately sunk into the mud.

• 17:32John Hopkins?

  The car lurches as the ground suddenly gives way beneath it.

• 17:37John Hopkins?

  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.

• 17:48John Hopkins?

  With this crust now broken, it only takes seconds for the wheels to sink into the thick, sticky silt underneath.

• 17:57John Hopkins?

  The engine strains, the tyres spinning uselessly as they try to gain traction, sending mud splattering backwards. The vehicle is stuck fast. It would 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.

• 18:26Speaker 05

  So it wasn’t a feeling of urgency. It wasn’t really a feeling of stress at all. Realised we were bogged, got out, yeah, in the mud. Ah, that’s fine. Right, we’ll sort it out tomorrow. And then just jumped out of the car and walked off to the counter.

• 18:39John Hopkins?

  They retreat into their tents and sleep, unperturbed by this turn of events.

• 18:50John Hopkins?

  When the sun rises the next day, they wake and head over to deal with the car. Daylight reveals that it’s 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.

• 19:08Speaker 05

  When they looked at the car, they realised like, it’s really bogged. It’s really, really bogged.

• 19:12John Hopkins?

  Shocked to discover their car has sunk up to its axles in the silt of the creek bed, the group quickly begin 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.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  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 it was really thick and really horribly saline and disgusting and stinky and sticky. Now we moved the car quite a few metres, and so the more we dug, the more that mess that became of it. But every time you moved it, it would get more stuck and more stuck.

• 20:01John Hopkins?

  This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, “Real Dictators” returns. We’re in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On “Short History Of”, we’ll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On “Real Survival Stories”, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.

• 20:32John Hopkins?

  In “Jane Austen Stories”, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes’ short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 20:56John Hopkins?

  Brendan fronds as he eyes the bogged car.

• 21:01John Hopkins?

  Initial efforts to free the vehicle have proved it's more firmly entrenched in the silt of the creek bed than previously thought.

• 21:09John Hopkins?

  Nevertheless Brendan, his girlfriend Mel and their two friends haven't come into the bush unprepared. Part of their emergency equipment includes Max Trax 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.

• 21:32Speaker 05

  The tracks weren't really working at well and we were digging to nowhere essentially. It was a lost effort essentially, the whole day. By the end of the day, we were exhausted, we were covered in this horrible mud. We didn't have a lot of water left, we didn't have a lot of food left. We thought, now we're really in it here. We got as clean as we could, went to bed and thought the next day we'll have another crack at it.

• 21:49John Hopkins?

  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.

• 22:07John Hopkins?

  Realising that they need a change of tactic, the foursome 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.

• 22:26Speaker 05

  Basically the strategy was, we would try and find anything that would hold weight and get it under the tyres so it wouldn't sort of 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 or the rock or the steel, they would just push it down into the dirt, into the slush.

• 22:43John Hopkins?

  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 for the vast cattle paddock strewn across the outback. And if it is, right now, it could be a lifesaver.

• 23:23Speaker 05

  It's probably why we didn't really feel stressed the day to go out with water. Because we saw the tank and we thought, ah, we've got water over there, even though we've got no water. We just had this belief that we'd find some water and that was sort of the backup. On we run out of water, we'll just go over and walk up there.

• 23:37John Hopkins?

  Assured 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.

• 23:55John Hopkins?

  And their discomforts don't end there.

• 23:58Speaker 05

  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 on part of the 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 sockets and into your nose and your ears and your mouth. They're trying to actively enter you and it's disgusting.

• 24:20John Hopkins?

  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.

• 24:30Speaker 05

  You're laying down, you just want to rest and you can't because there's flies all over you. So the fly hood goes on and then when the fly hood's on, they're still on your, 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 heavy with the flies all day, you really look forward to night when they all go away. Yeah, you really start counting the clock, counting the hours down before sunset when you know they're not going to be there.

• 24:57John Hopkins?

  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 fetid mud, but the prospect of rinsing themselves off and quenching their thirst is enough to spur them on.

• 25:30John Hopkins?

  Yet when the two women finally return, their faces are grim.

• 25:35Speaker 05

  The girls came back and they're like, there's no water, the tank was broken, it's been broken for years. Like, ah, that dread sort of saying that, you know, what we thought was a sense of relief, of option, was not what we thought it was.

• 25:46John Hopkins?

  It's a soul-crushing blow.

• 25:49John Hopkins?

  They now have just a few mouthfuls of water left each and no hope of replenishing their supplies.

• 25:56John Hopkins?

  Having already spent hours trying to free the car in the furnace-like heat of the outback, their priorities now shift. The focus turns to finding a way of surviving the next few days.

• 26:09Speaker 05

  Matt, who I was with as an engineer, once you dug a hole, there was quite a lot of water in the hole, but it was hyper saline, like dangerously saline. He'd made a steel out of a Jim Bean bottle and a pipe and it was like trying to boil the water and steam it and go through. It was working, but it was not enough for us to survive on.

• 26:26John Hopkins?

  Matt works hard to purify the saline water, but all of his efforts bring meagre 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.

• 26:41Speaker 05

  We'd been in the mud all day, two days and we were filthy. We had no water to wash ourselves with and it was baking to our skin and we couldn't get it off. And the girls were helping us like rub it off with towels or peel it off and it was ripping at our skin. I had all that feeling of like, I'm covered, I'm literally caked in this horrible mud and I've got to sleep. And it was challenging as well. So by the end of day two, we really realised that this wasn't the usual situation that we've, you know, got ourselves out of many times before. Yeah, we were really, you know, in it.

• 27:11John Hopkins?

  In camp that night, the mood is somber. The group has just a few apples and muesli bars left and their clean water supplies are now completely exhausted.

• 27:23John Hopkins?

  Beneath the star-strewn sky, with the howls of distant dingoes 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.

• 27:45John Hopkins?

  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.

• 27:58Speaker 05

  I remember sitting around in a camp that night, covered in mud. And the fun of the conversation had gone and we were really focused 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 by the end of the second day, the stress had set in and the conversation moved from enjoying it against other's company to being about survival. What are the things we need to do now to preserve ourselves the next day? You know, what's the critical decisions we need to make to get ourselves out of here?

• 28:29John Hopkins?

  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.

• 28:41John Hopkins?

  Come morning, the gravity of the situation can't be denied any longer.

• 28:46Speaker 05

  The next day, we realised we weren't going to get in. We sort of stopped doing anything and thinking like, what are we going to do?

• 28:54John Hopkins?

  It becomes clear they only have two options and both are deeply unappealing.

• 29:01John Hopkins?

  They can wait and hope that rescue comes to them, or they can attempt to walk out and find help.

• 29:08Speaker 05

  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, you know, cars are much easier to find from the sky. If you look at, you know, Australian outback fatalities, often the people have left the car. So one of the things that people always say is stay with your car. If we know you're lost, 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 road's 20 kilometres away, we know that that road's very unused. What do we do? We can't just sit here and wait.

• 29:52John Hopkins?

  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.

• 30:03John Hopkins?

  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.

• 30:15Speaker 05

  That was pretty scary, knowing that we decided that the best course of action was someone to stay with the car and others to 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 20K, we've got no water, it'll be the end of us. So we decided we'll just lay low, lay in the shade, take it easy and then thought to ourselves, yeah, tonight we walk out. We prepared ourselves to walk out that night.

• 30:41John Hopkins?

  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 skies darken and another day fades, it's obvious that isn't going to happen.

• 30:57John Hopkins?

  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.

• 31:06Speaker 05

  It was the middle of the night and we're in the Outback Australia, you know, there's dingoes around campsite. We heard dingoes that night while we were walking. It's a terrifying thing to have dingoes near you howling and probably following you. We rustle in 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. You know, it still is. You're walking out of a stressful situation, through a stressful situation to the unknown. I remember that feeling of, yeah, are we going to make this walk?

• 31:40John Hopkins?

  This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.

• 32:11John Hopkins?

  In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 32:33John Hopkins?

  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.

• 32:56Speaker 05

  We've walked quite a lot, you know, tons of pretty big walks in our time. So we both thought we could walk that far. Like, that's probably why we chose to go, is that we're used to walk quite a lot. We've always had dogs, reactive dogs. So we have, you know, experienced the walking, you know, 10Ks on a Sunday morning for fun. And that was pretty normal for us.

• 33:11John Hopkins?

  Nevertheless, being surrounded by the haunting song of the dingoes and the unnerving rustles of the undergrowth is undeniably disturbing.

• 33:21John Hopkins?

  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.

• 33:30Speaker 05

  Reassuring each other, providing each other comfort. When we get there, we'll be fine, someone will come past. Those kind of discussions, yeah, someone will find us, they'll have water. We're in the middle of the outback. Everyone's gonna have water and food in their car. Hopefully they'll sort of get a can of Coke or something delicious in the car. So that was the mood of the conversation along the way. It was, you know, keeping ourselves in good spirits and getting the job done.

• 33:52John Hopkins?

  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.

• 34:03Speaker 05

  I remember, you know, turning around and taking a few moments and thinking, oh, that beautiful sunrise. We got there and on the side of the road, it started to warm up already. So we found a spot, under some trees, and basically we were pretty exhausted and just sat down. I remember we had an apple and a little small pool of water and trying to make it last.

• 34:21John Hopkins?

  In the three days it took them to drive up the Birdsville track, the group encountered only a handful of other cars. It could be hours or perhaps days before someone comes.

• 34:33John Hopkins?

  There is little Brendan and Mel can do in the meantime but sit beneath the trees and wait.

• 34:39John Hopkins?

  As the sun gathers strength and the temperature increases, they both begin to feel the effects of exhaustion and dehydration.

• 34:47John Hopkins?

  The hours pass in a fuzzy blur.

• 34:52John Hopkins?

  And then, sometime in the mid-morning, Brendan and Mel are roused by sound.

• 34:59John Hopkins?

  An engine.

• 35:01Speaker 05

  Here comes a car, here comes a car. And we didn't really make a big effort to wave it down. We just thought they would naturally stop. Like, we're just sitting on the side of the road and then we're in the middle of nowhere, looking pretty disheveled. So we sort of just like got up and we sort of stand by the side of the road and sort of our hands up. Oh, hey, car. Then the car sort of slowed down, looked at us and just went whoosh, straight past. And the heartbreak of that moment, like, ugh! Just like the gobsmacked moment of what, what happened? Like, why did they not stop? Like, we are clearly out of sorts.

• 35:30John Hopkins?

  The car speeds off into the distance, and within seconds, it's disappeared.

• 35:37John Hopkins?

  Brendan and Mel stare at each other in shocked, horrified silence, their chance of rescue gone. Initially, they are bewildered, but then a possible explanation comes to them.

• 35:51Speaker 05

  So Australia has a long history of hitchhikers 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, you know, a number of serial killers who targeted hitchhikers and backpackers across the country, which has led to the Wolf Creek series of movies, a whole range of stories and struggles and fatalities of people in the outback who have met or come across people who are undesirable and have, you know, taken advantage of them. There is a real sense, particularly for people from the big cities traveling the outback, of who are you gonna come across? This is a dangerous place.

• 36:30John Hopkins?

  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.

• 36:42Speaker 05

  We probably passed, you know, half a dozen cars and days of travel on that track. And it's not like it's, you know, the state highway where cars are traveling back and forth all the time. Can we make it all day? Can we sit here all day and actually make it?

• 36:57John Hopkins?

  Weakened by a lack of food and water and exhausted after their long nocturnal walk, lethargy begins to steal over the couple.

• 37:06John Hopkins?

  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.

• 37:18John Hopkins?

  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.

• 37:30John Hopkins?

  Ravaged by the hardships of the last few days, it isn't long before both of them start to drift.

• 37:41John Hopkins?

  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.

• 37:58John Hopkins?

  Suddenly, something jerks the couple back to full consciousness.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  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 rush. The car's here, the car's here, go, go, go, go, go. They were jumping out into the road and waving, waving, like being frantic and then this car stopping, and it was a couple from Sydney.

• 38:19John Hopkins?

  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.

• 38:34John Hopkins?

  But the couple inside refuse. Like the passengers in the previous car, they too are concerned about these haggard strangers and their incredulous tale.

• 38:44John Hopkins?

  However, after some argument, a compromise is eventually reached. The couple from Sydney will go and investigate Brendan and Mel's bogged car, then return to them.

• 38:56John Hopkins?

  After handing over some bottles of water, they drive off, leaving the couple alone once again.

• 39:07John Hopkins?

  Finally, after a couple of hours, they hear the blessed sound of not just one engine, but two.

• 39:14John Hopkins?

  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.

• 39:22Speaker 05

  The relief of hearing the cars coming, and you could definitely hear it was two cars coming, and then seeing their car lead out our car, which was covered in mud and it had been pulled out of the mud. The sense of relief and joy and then and celebration then, because then obviously they realize we're really stuck, realize that we were good people and we're genuine. And we sat for quite a while and they fed us some food, gave us some water, and we sat on the side of the road and joked and laughed and enjoyed each other's company and then went away.

• 39:47John Hopkins?

  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 a story of their brush with death.

• 40:04Speaker 05

  Telling the story, having a laugh and having it to you that realizes we're safe, you know, we made it. And then getting back in the car and driving the last three hours. So I remember that last stretch after the sort of the celebration and we've gotten out of here, the last three hours home was quiet silence. It was just get home, get it done.

• 40:25John Hopkins?

  When they finally arrive 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.

• 40:36John Hopkins?

  For Brendan, it's a sobering discovery and teaches him a valuable lesson.

• 40:43Speaker 05

  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 in the bush and I'll routinely, without fault, to last text I'll send her is, "I am here, I am going here, I expect to be out at 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, someone in your family knows what your plan is. And if you're not back, that's the point of action.

• 41:22John Hopkins?

  And that is the only safety precaution he now takes as a result of his experience in the outback.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  I very rarely go in rugged environments on my own. It's always two cars, always take two cars. Um, even if it's just you and your friend, take two cars. Cause if one gets stuck, your chances of life with two cars is far better. So you should really never is travel in a single convoy in dangerous situations. And that was the lesson, my biggest lesson to be learned.

• 41:48John Hopkins?

  Now married and living in New Zealand with their two sons, Brendan and Mel continue to enjoy their outdoor pursuits as a family.

• 41:54Speaker 05

  When I'm adventuring in New Zealand or in Australia, I'm much more cautious about the situation and the scenario I put myself in with my boys. I've, you know, been caught out a few times in the past where you think you're okay and you're not. So I'd say I'm much more reserved now around the level of risk when I'm in the outback or in any sort of wild place. I'm much more conservative about the risk judgment of the scenario.

• 42:25John Hopkins?

  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.

• 42:51Speaker 05

  I think that that's 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 in your survival scenario you're in. That ability just to breathe and say, okay, we're in strife. What do I need to do? That, that logical thinking with a calm mind is really important. I think that's probably what got us through in 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 was about, you know, putting one foot in front of the other and just thinking about logically. And something I'm saying to my boys all the time now, how do you eat the elephant?

• 43:33Speaker 05

  You know, my mind at the time is just thinking about it in a very step by step manner.

• 43:52John Hopkins?

  Next time on Real Survival Stories, catastrophe unfolds on one of the deadliest mountains on earth, the mighty K2.

• 44:01John Hopkins?

  In the summer of 2008, Dutch climber Wilco 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 ice fall leaves the climbers stranded without fixed ropes. Wilco and his teammates will find themselves trapped at extreme, life sapping altitude in an area known as the death zone.

• 44:25Speaker 06

  There is a limitation for every human being because we can't survive at eight kilometers high. There is a lack of oxygen, you will die. The only question is what kind of period can you survive?

• 44:39John Hopkins?

  Time is running out and soon it won't just be the dizzying altitude that Wilco 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.

• 44:54John Hopkins?

  That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen today without waiting and without ads by joining Noiser Plus.

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