A woman rescued after being stranded in Australia's remote outback for 12 days said she survived on biscuits and drinking from a watering hole.
Tamra McBeath-Riley's ordeal began when the car she was went for an afternoon drive with Claire Hockridge and Phu Tran - setting off from Alice Springs.
Their car got stuck in a riverbed on November 19 and after three days the group split to get help.
Ms McBeath-Riley was found near 1.5km from her car but her companions are still missing.
Speaking to reporters outside a hospital in Alice Springs, where the 52-year-old was treated for dehydration and exposure, she said: "We tried many times to try to get out, but just couldn't get out, the river was just too large.
"During the day it's just really hot so we dug ourselves under the car. At night [we] could sleep in the car."
Within days they had used all the water they had, some iced vodkas, biscuits and beef noodles they had in the car.
But they stumbles across a watering hole, and boiled the water before sieving it through a shirt.
NT Police Superintendent Pauline Vicary told the Australian Broadcasting Corps: "It was still quite dirty, not hygienic water but it kept them alive."
After splitting up Mr Tran and Ms Hockridge planned to walk towards the highway while Ms McBeath-Riley stayed in the area because she believed her dog Raya, who was with them, would not survive a long trek.
Ms McBeath-Riley was rescued by Northern Territory Police after a local person reported seeing tyre tracks.
Officers had been using a helicopter to try and find the group.
Supt Vicary said: "She's had a fairly traumatic period of time.
"Sensibly she appears to have stayed where the water is and has been drinking that and that's probably what kept her going."
Police have stepped up up their search for Mr Tran and Ms Hockridge but officers have yet to searching the area by foot.
She told ABC: "Because of the terrain that they have gone missing in, and because we don't have a particularly focused area, we are still doing the helicopters.
"It's quite a diverse terrain - there's sandy dunes, there's hard clay, there's areas of dense trees but there is also rocks and ranges in the area as well."
Ms McBeath-Riley said she had assumed the pair had been found already and was now worried.
