An Australian couple who were trying to avoid coronavirus border restrictions spent two days in the outback with no food or water after their car got bogged in sand.
The Royal Flying Doctor service said the couple, from Adelaide, were lucky to be alive.
Jose, 29 and Nicky, 32, were on holiday in Cairns when the South Australian government introduced a hard border with New South Wales, in response to a coronavirus outbreak in Sydney.
They believed they had to avoid driving through NSW in order to be allowed back into SA and were advised by another traveller to head inland and enter SA from Queensland, taking backroads through northern SA.
However under SA’s border rules, people who were transiting through NSW to South Australia were exempt from the ban provided they did not stop in NSW.
On 3 January their Toyota Rav4 got bogged in the sand on an unsealed outback road. They told the Royal Flying Doctor Service that they tried for several hours to free the car before abandoning it with a note to say they would walk to Innamincka, a blip on the map about 100km from Birdsville.
They walked for 40km with their dog Loki, a dalmatian puppy who is less than one year old.
At one point they scrawled ‘SOS’ in the sand. They left notes along the way asking people to call emergency services for them, anchored with tools.
“It was so hot and we were scared, I thought we were going to die,” Jose said, in a statement to RFDS. “My phone said SOS only, and I kept trying over and over again to call for help but the call wouldn’t go through.”
Without water, Jose drank from a muddy cattle trough, the leaking water from a solar panel, and his own urine. Nicky was unable to stomach those options and became so dehydrated that she struggled to walk.
“I was worried my fiance Nicky wouldn’t make it as she was needing more and more breaks to rest, and I had to beg her to keep walking,” he said.
On 5 January they were happened upon by a man who worked for Santos, which is drilling for gas in the Cooper Basin near Innamincka.
“Craig told us he only took that road once every six weeks, and we had another 25km to walk to get to Innamincka,” Jose said. “If he hadn’t found us, we would have perished.”
Craig drove the couple to the RFDS station at Innamincka, where they received a medical check and were deemed to be fatigued and dehydrated but healthy. They spent several days recuperating at Innamincka and drove home to Adelaide after another worker at the mine used a crane to free their car.
Loki was unharmed and was reportedly pulling at his lead for the entire two-day ordeal.
The RFDS said the incident was a reminder of the danger of travelling on outback roads and has warned people to take extra precautions when travelling in remote areas.
It comes after an Adelaide woman complained of poor medical treatment and unsympathetic treatment from police when she had a miscarriage at the side of the road in regional South Australia, during a long and arduous road journey from regional NSW to Adelaide. That trip was also made longer by border closures. Usually it would involve cutting through north-western Victoria, but police working on the Victorian border incorrectly told them they were not allowed to drive through the state.
South Australia introduced the hard border with NSW on New Year’s Eve. People who had been in NSW in the past 14 days were banned from entering the state unless they were essential travellers, returning South Australians, and people permanently relocating to the state. The latter two groups were still required to undergo 14 days of self-isolation upon their return.
The full direction, posted online by SA Police on 31 December, also said that travelling through NSW from any other Australian jurisdiction or New Zealand was permitted “providing the person does not stop in greater Sydney, they wear a face mask when in contact with public and travel via most direct and practicable route not stopping in any other part of New South Wales unless for emergency/respite/essential purposes”.
It’s unclear whether the couple were aware of this option.
It takes about 32 hours to drive the most direct route from Cairns to Adelaide, which includes eight hours through far western NSW, driving down to Cobar and then heading west on the Barrier Highway to enter South Australia at Cockburn, near Broken Hill.
South Australia lifted its hard border with regional NSW on Wednesday, but restrictions remain in place with Wollongong and greater Sydney. Victoria and Western Australia also introduced a hard border with NSW on New Year’s Eve, and Victoria has also since eased restrictions with people who have been in regional NSW. All other states and territories have some degree of border restrictions with NSW.
