Bushwalk Australia

mild weather kept them alive for four nights. not the normal cold wet and windy weather for this time of year.
they left no trip intentions with anyone. they were lucky the road end they left their car at had people living near by and a resident reported the car to the police, otherwise they wouldnt have known where to start searching.
no map, compass or navigation device, no emergency shelter no PLB..
for some reason they were dehydrated despite camping next to a stream.
most rescues recently have involved a large element of good fortune and luck that enabled people to be found and survive,
such as people having cell phone coverage. in this scenario there was no cell phone coverage, and that was one reason the search didnt start till three days after they were overdue and didnt find them for another day...


http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7946638 ... rth-island

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=11631593

Proves just how fast most searches can have a good result, had they been called in as overdue after one night, its likely they would have been out the next day.

As far as the dehydration, if their experience is only walking in the US they may have been overcautious on the water quality, or due to hunger she was just not drinking enough. I think that's more likely.

Extremely fortunate, hopefully others realize how close they came and use it as a guide for being more careful, rather than a reason to relax.

Did they do anything right ?.....as you said, lucky there was no loss of life.

eventually they did, eventually after days of wandering around they finally stopped, laid out a help sign in a clearing and waited where they were, kept each other warm and rationed their food...

interview with the rescued walkers
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/ne ... s-trampers

"Unshakeable love and faith saved us, say rescued US trampers"

I think I'd rather be prepared than rely on faith in the bush.

didnt help that the policeman in charge of the search said they did everything correctly..
there have been a lot of people rescued recently that luck has played a large part in their survival. often extremely lucky that they had cell phone coverage to get rescued before they died of exposure or their injuries.
the Tararuas dont feature on a lot of walkers radars, they arent big by NZ standards , there are more scenic places to visit, you dont need climbing gear to do the tracks, they are reasonably straight forward albeit rough... but go off track and the terrain and bush can get extremely nasty. I've averaged half a kilometer per hour on some trips i've done there off track sometimes you hardly touch the ground because the vegetation and dead trees are so dense. the tracks arent all marked out that well.. and thats not unusual for a great deal of NZ tracks, especially the ones that arent the more popular ones. a lot of NZ bush is the density of density of dense jungle. you could be lost a couple of metres from a track....

sounds like a track a buddy of mine did, no one thought they should tell him it had been closed and unmaintained for years. he met a track clearing crew on the last day, they were a bit shocked to see him. He had a check-in plan in place, but luck kept him from having to be rescued, rather than luck providing a quick rescue.

tv interiew with rescued pair

http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/mother- ... z47NlDq3dS

from what i can make out from the location they were found in, they were past the worst of the terrain and onto flat stream bed and should have been able to easily walk out from where they were, they were found within a couple of kilometres from their car.
but because they had no no effective means of navigation and didn't know where they were they stopped due to exhaustion and the need to conserve energy and there they stayed for days..

wayno wrote:but go off track and the terrain and bush can get extremely nasty. I've averaged half a kilometer per hour on some trips i've done there off track sometimes you hardly touch the ground because the vegetation and dead trees are so dense.

Also on that topic, the western Tararuas (where they were) get a much higher rainfall than the east, and so in general the bush there tends to be more dense. It's mostly due to their exposure to the west and the way in which the geography channels weather through the Cook Straight (between the two main islands).

In the circumstances they were very fortunate with the weather.

another person very lucky to be alive, crawled for two hours with a broken leg to get cell phone reception

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news ... g-on-track