Teh One Who Knocks
07-17-2020, 10:34 AM
ABC Esperance / By Emily Smith
https://i.imgur.com/ueuzGQL.png
A Perth university graduate says he is grateful to be alive after walking for two days through a remote Western Australian national park fearing he would never see his family again.
Lachlan Marie, 23, was travelling alone through Cape Arid, about 200 kilometres east of Esperance on the state's south coast, when his Jeep Cherokee got stuck in a mudflat on Sunday.
Despite trying to dig the car out with a shovel and by hand — leaving him with heavily grazed knuckles — it would not budge.
Although there was no phone reception, he had downloaded a map of the area, so set off with four bottles of water and a backpack on the 60-kilometre trek to civilisation.
"I figured that if I didn't get moving, if I didn't find my way out of the park, I was probably not going to make it," Mr Marie said.
He spoke to the ABC in Esperance on Thursday, having been discharged from the hospital's emergency ward the day before.
Sleeping rough, drinking from puddles
Mr Marie had convinced his parents to let him borrow the car to explore the West Australian coast.
After seeing Albany and spending time near Esperance, he headed east towards Cape Arid, where he wanted to see the historic telegraph station at Israelite Bay.
https://i.imgur.com/YxWfMLY.png
On Saturday, on the way back from the telegraph station he veered off the main track to follow tyre marks across the mudflats.
"I figured most of the mudflats were going to be dry, solid ground," Mr Marie said.
"Once I got onto it, my wheels started sinking in and getting just … stuck. I was just completely bogged."
After trying in vain to dig the car out with his shovel, he started to "get quite panicked".
"Out of pure desperation I was trying to scrape the bulk of the mud out from under my wheels," he said.
"It really shredded my hands up a little bit."
Adding to his growing unease was the fact he had not seen a soul the entire time he had been in the park.
Thankfully, he had a map from Google downloaded, showing he was about 60km from civilisation.
So, around 1:15pm on Saturday he set out, with a backpack, four 600mL bottles of water, a sleeping bag, a butane stove and all the food he had left.
He walked about 12kms by nightfall, when he sat down, cooked sausages for dinner and wriggled into his sleeping bag for his first night on the track.
"It was just shocking," he said.
"It was just blowing all night, that whole area is really windy, there's nothing to break the wind, because it was all just low scrub."
And his mind was racing.
"That also made it hard to sleep — I was really quite concerned," Mr Marie said.
"I started having thoughts about 'Am I even going to make it out of the park? Should I even be sleeping? Should I be walking right now because I only have so much water and I only have so much time?
"It was hard to sleep — let's leave it at that."
https://i.imgur.com/weoJ5JV.png
Mr Marie said water was his biggest concern, and a few times he was forced to drink from "filthy mud puddles".
But, after another day of walking and another night spent camping rough, Mr Marie finally at least had some evidence another human was in the area.
'G'day mate how you going?'
On the horizon, he saw a ute driving down the road.
But despite Mr Marie waving his arms, the driver didn't see him.
A little later though, he saw the same vehicle drive back.
"So I started waving and shouting and everything as loud as I could," he said.
"But he still didn't see me."
Finally, that same car appeared again, directly in front of Mr Marie.
"[The driver] pulled up and said 'G'day mate how you going?" Mr Marie said.
"And I said: 'Well, pretty terrible actually'."
That ute driver was Ryan, who worked at a nearby farm.
"Apparently I drove past him twice. But I did not see him," Ryan told the ABC.
"I was heading home for lunch and that's when I found him on my driveway.
"I was pretty gobsmacked myself.
"To be honest — he is very lucky to be alive."
https://i.imgur.com/zNFLDpS.png
To Mr Marie's huge relief, Ryan agreed to give him a ride into town.
"I was so, so grateful that he was out there and he picked me up," Mr Marie said.
"I was kind of beside myself.
"The situation had just changed so much in a couple of hours — I'd gone from being really quite despairing and desperate, to being just so relieved, ridiculously relieved, to have someone saving me, going back to Esperance."
On the way home he called his dad — who "wasn't too happy the car was stranded" but very happy to hear he was OK.
8 litres of IV fluid
After being dropped in town, Mr Marie went straight to the local pub, the Pier Hotel, for a steak.
"I probably smelt pretty shocking, so sorry if that put anyone off," he said.
After that, he went to hospital.
He said his mum convinced him to check in, after hearing his voice on the phone and thinking he sounded "really bad".
"It was weird because … I didn't feel like I was on the verge of death or anything," he said.
"But my mum was like: 'You really need to go to hospital'."
https://i.imgur.com/bU3Y4Uq.png
And it was lucky she convinced him because the hospital sent him straight to emergency, kept him overnight and pumped eight litres of intravenous fluid into him.
"The doctors said: 'Yeah, your muscles are breaking down and everything, this is not good'," Mr Marie said.
While he was in hospital, the local wreckers stopped by around 4:00pm and picked up the keys to the stranded Jeep.
Mr Marie said the crew went straight out to Cape Arid and, reportedly, rescued his car with "a full-on winch from about 50m away".
'Off-roading in Australia is no joke'
Asked what he'd learned during the experience, Mr Marie said "that off-roading in Australia is no joke".
He urged anyone else considering going to a remote area to take serious precautions.
But he also said it had changed his outlook on life.
"When I was out there nothing much crossed my mind except seeing my family again and making it out alive," he said.
"It really does solidify what's important and I guess that's family.
"So I guess the moral of the story is: Be prepared for your four-wheel drive adventures and be grateful for your family."
Mr Marie's dad was flying into Esperance on Thursday night and they planned to spend the next week checking out the local attractions — like Cape Le Grand National Park.
But hadn't he seen enough of national parks lately?
"Not all national parks are made equally, let's say that — man, Cape Arid is a different story."
https://i.imgur.com/ueuzGQL.png
A Perth university graduate says he is grateful to be alive after walking for two days through a remote Western Australian national park fearing he would never see his family again.
Lachlan Marie, 23, was travelling alone through Cape Arid, about 200 kilometres east of Esperance on the state's south coast, when his Jeep Cherokee got stuck in a mudflat on Sunday.
Despite trying to dig the car out with a shovel and by hand — leaving him with heavily grazed knuckles — it would not budge.
Although there was no phone reception, he had downloaded a map of the area, so set off with four bottles of water and a backpack on the 60-kilometre trek to civilisation.
"I figured that if I didn't get moving, if I didn't find my way out of the park, I was probably not going to make it," Mr Marie said.
He spoke to the ABC in Esperance on Thursday, having been discharged from the hospital's emergency ward the day before.
Sleeping rough, drinking from puddles
Mr Marie had convinced his parents to let him borrow the car to explore the West Australian coast.
After seeing Albany and spending time near Esperance, he headed east towards Cape Arid, where he wanted to see the historic telegraph station at Israelite Bay.
https://i.imgur.com/YxWfMLY.png
On Saturday, on the way back from the telegraph station he veered off the main track to follow tyre marks across the mudflats.
"I figured most of the mudflats were going to be dry, solid ground," Mr Marie said.
"Once I got onto it, my wheels started sinking in and getting just … stuck. I was just completely bogged."
After trying in vain to dig the car out with his shovel, he started to "get quite panicked".
"Out of pure desperation I was trying to scrape the bulk of the mud out from under my wheels," he said.
"It really shredded my hands up a little bit."
Adding to his growing unease was the fact he had not seen a soul the entire time he had been in the park.
Thankfully, he had a map from Google downloaded, showing he was about 60km from civilisation.
So, around 1:15pm on Saturday he set out, with a backpack, four 600mL bottles of water, a sleeping bag, a butane stove and all the food he had left.
He walked about 12kms by nightfall, when he sat down, cooked sausages for dinner and wriggled into his sleeping bag for his first night on the track.
"It was just shocking," he said.
"It was just blowing all night, that whole area is really windy, there's nothing to break the wind, because it was all just low scrub."
And his mind was racing.
"That also made it hard to sleep — I was really quite concerned," Mr Marie said.
"I started having thoughts about 'Am I even going to make it out of the park? Should I even be sleeping? Should I be walking right now because I only have so much water and I only have so much time?
"It was hard to sleep — let's leave it at that."
https://i.imgur.com/weoJ5JV.png
Mr Marie said water was his biggest concern, and a few times he was forced to drink from "filthy mud puddles".
But, after another day of walking and another night spent camping rough, Mr Marie finally at least had some evidence another human was in the area.
'G'day mate how you going?'
On the horizon, he saw a ute driving down the road.
But despite Mr Marie waving his arms, the driver didn't see him.
A little later though, he saw the same vehicle drive back.
"So I started waving and shouting and everything as loud as I could," he said.
"But he still didn't see me."
Finally, that same car appeared again, directly in front of Mr Marie.
"[The driver] pulled up and said 'G'day mate how you going?" Mr Marie said.
"And I said: 'Well, pretty terrible actually'."
That ute driver was Ryan, who worked at a nearby farm.
"Apparently I drove past him twice. But I did not see him," Ryan told the ABC.
"I was heading home for lunch and that's when I found him on my driveway.
"I was pretty gobsmacked myself.
"To be honest — he is very lucky to be alive."
https://i.imgur.com/zNFLDpS.png
To Mr Marie's huge relief, Ryan agreed to give him a ride into town.
"I was so, so grateful that he was out there and he picked me up," Mr Marie said.
"I was kind of beside myself.
"The situation had just changed so much in a couple of hours — I'd gone from being really quite despairing and desperate, to being just so relieved, ridiculously relieved, to have someone saving me, going back to Esperance."
On the way home he called his dad — who "wasn't too happy the car was stranded" but very happy to hear he was OK.
8 litres of IV fluid
After being dropped in town, Mr Marie went straight to the local pub, the Pier Hotel, for a steak.
"I probably smelt pretty shocking, so sorry if that put anyone off," he said.
After that, he went to hospital.
He said his mum convinced him to check in, after hearing his voice on the phone and thinking he sounded "really bad".
"It was weird because … I didn't feel like I was on the verge of death or anything," he said.
"But my mum was like: 'You really need to go to hospital'."
https://i.imgur.com/bU3Y4Uq.png
And it was lucky she convinced him because the hospital sent him straight to emergency, kept him overnight and pumped eight litres of intravenous fluid into him.
"The doctors said: 'Yeah, your muscles are breaking down and everything, this is not good'," Mr Marie said.
While he was in hospital, the local wreckers stopped by around 4:00pm and picked up the keys to the stranded Jeep.
Mr Marie said the crew went straight out to Cape Arid and, reportedly, rescued his car with "a full-on winch from about 50m away".
'Off-roading in Australia is no joke'
Asked what he'd learned during the experience, Mr Marie said "that off-roading in Australia is no joke".
He urged anyone else considering going to a remote area to take serious precautions.
But he also said it had changed his outlook on life.
"When I was out there nothing much crossed my mind except seeing my family again and making it out alive," he said.
"It really does solidify what's important and I guess that's family.
"So I guess the moral of the story is: Be prepared for your four-wheel drive adventures and be grateful for your family."
Mr Marie's dad was flying into Esperance on Thursday night and they planned to spend the next week checking out the local attractions — like Cape Le Grand National Park.
But hadn't he seen enough of national parks lately?
"Not all national parks are made equally, let's say that — man, Cape Arid is a different story."