Most people know that the legendary Barnsey (Peter Barnes) at Birdsville has recovered many broken down vehicles from the Simpson Desert. Fewer know that Dusty Miller, owner of the Birdsville Bakery, also runs a recovery service; and even fewer are aware that David Cox with wife Mel (who have been at Mount Dare since 2002) have also performed some remarkable rescues of stranded Simpson travellers. They are just a small sample of people across Australia who make a living from saving behinds in times of need.
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They may not realise it, but people who have had their broken down vehicle recovered by such people owe their lives to them; it’s not just about getting your vehicle back. The sad truth is that mostly bodies are located while people are being searched for, and they are generally found away from the stranded vehicles. The live ones are still with the vehicles … and this is why you need to be prepared. If your vehicle does break down and you know what to do if you are hurt or stranded, you won’t perish. The equation is simple; a reliable vehicle, an educated driver and a well-prepared traveller are not a danger to themselves. But if Murphy’s Law has anything to do with it, something will go wrong.
Rule one … stay with your vehicle. A vehicle is easier to see than a lone person, who is probably sitting under a tree and out of sight. Your vehicle offers shade in the day and protection from the elements at night. Being composed of metal and glass, it is reflective and ‘winks’ in the sunlight from the air. If you have a tarp, use it to set up shade, if possible a few metres away from your vehicle. Being metal, your vehicle will heat up and being inside or close to it can actually dehydrate you further, however it’s a good source of retained heat when the nights get cold.
Also, a bright blue tarp stands out against the greys and reds of the desert … and you thought green tarps were a better choice!
The whole point is to draw attention to yourself, so if you can, light a fire and if it truly is an emergency, throw your plastic bottles (preferably ones you’ve used and don’t need) onto the fire. You’ll end up with a tower of smoke that can be seen for many kilometres and someone will come to investigate it, plus a fire in the desert at night can be seen from the air. What you are trying to avoid though, is just looking like a traveller who has stopped to camp. Grab something to write the word HELP in large letters – rocks, drawn in the sand – anything you’ve got. But if someone knows where you planned to travel, they will know where to look.
Rule two … know where you are going and let others know too. It’s all about the planning! Make sure you spend plenty of time planning your route, calculating the distances you’ll travel (thus the fuel you’ll need to carry) and where you’ll be on certain days. This way if you don’t turn up as planned, someone will be wondering where you are.
Your sat phone (we’ll get into these a little later) is a great way to call in your location each evening so your loved ones know that you’ve made it there safely … and of course, a call in the morning when you are heading off is a good idea too. Some people baulk at ‘bothering the folks at home’ or running up a sat phone bill, but they are there to save lives. Of course, if you’ve had a terrible accident or are physically unable to call, it’s the call they don’t receive that alerts them. At least if you’ve plotted your route, they’ll have an idea where to send help. Whilst your UHF is great for short distances, it’s your sat phone or HF radio that is remote area proven. However, it may take a few days to work out where you are and actually get to you.
Rule three … carry more water and supplies than you need for the days you intend to travel. You can only last two to three days without water, and around ten days without food. In arid regions, you’ll need around five litres a day per person just for drinking (more for cooking and washing); but if you don’t exert yourself, the bare minimum is one to two litres per day and you’ll need to ensure that you are putting this ration to good use. Take care to stay in the shade, don’t move around too much, and drink the water in small sips throughout the day. Be careful not to just wet your mouth though, as you need to actually swallow the water for it to be properly absorbed by the body. ‘Saving’ your water by not drinking it until after the first day only puts your body under stress … so you’ll only make yourself less capable to deal with adverse conditions.
You can actually draw water in an emergency by building solar stills, which use condensation to get water from the ground and plants. This is why a wide roll of Gladwrap is mandatory kit for remote area travel – see diagram for instructions. The important thing is to make sure you build them where they get full sun all day, but build several (it’s a good idea to build a few in various spots to make sure you get enough water) very early in the morning before the sun comes up. This way they get a whole day of sun, and you aren’t exerting excess energy by building through the day.
Sometimes you will be able to find water in arid regions. Dry creek beds often yield water once you dig below the surface, and a good bet is to look for places where birds are hanging around as they need to drink twice a day to survive. A line of trees indicates that there is water underground.
It sounds pretty vile, but in an emergency (and only when things get dire) you can distil your own urine by pouring it into the hole you’ve dug for your solar still. Only the water in your urine evaporates, all the nasties are left behind. You can also use this method to distil any dirty water you may find, but a fantastic product to keep in your vehicle is a LifeSaver water bottle or jerry can – they allow you to drink whatever water you find in safety. It’s better if you can actually alert someone to your plight quickly enough to not have to take these measures.
Rule four … carry reliable communication options and an emergency beacon. We previously mentioned the sat phone, and for good reason. It’s a foolhardy person who heads into remote areas without one. Your mobile phone simply isn’t going to be of any use to you without coverage, and as your sat phone runs off satellites it will always have reception. Don’t be put off by the cost of calls … it’s there as a safety net and emergency hotline.
First and foremost though, make sure it is ALWAYS fully charged and, of course, connected to a reliable carrier before you set off. You need to make sure it’s ready to go in an instant. If your battery is flat and your vehicle has broken down, you may have no way to power it if your breakdown is an electrical issue. But if you are really in a bind and need emergency assistance quickly, you can’t go past an EPIRB. There’s also HF radios which (unlike UHF which are only really reliable as a ‘line of sight’ means of communication) ‘skip’ signals off the ionosphere – making them capable of transmitting signals over the horizon. Of course, a reliable vehicle is less likely to break down; and a few basic mechanical skills can often get you going again.
Rule five … carry spares and learn some basic mechanical skills. Only a crazy person would expect a tired, neglected vehicle to push itself all that harder on a long trek and come out unscathed at the other end. Think of your daily drive to work like a stroll in the park, and a desert trek like a marathon … you can’t expect your vehicle to handle the strain without getting it prepared first.
Taking a good, hard look at your 4X4 is the first step. You need to ask yourself whether your vehicle is capable of such a journey; and we aren’t just saying this in regards to older vehicles – we recently took a 50-year-old Nissan G60 across the Simpson Desert! That annoying little oil leak, slight overheating issue, dodgy wiring or not-so-fresh shock absorber can be inconvenient at home – but it can quickly deteriorate into a life-threatening situation if you are in the middle of nowhere when it decides to ultimately fail.
Your best bet is to book your truck in with a qualified mechanic who is familiar with 4X4s and touring requirements, and make sure you do it a few weeks ahead so you have the time to fix any problems that might arise. Your mechanic needs to be very thorough, checking for cracks in the chassis, testing your suspension, checking for leaks and compression loss; it’s not just about changing the spark plugs and oil, and making sure your indicators work.
Get a full, major service done and make sure your tyres are suitable (ditch the road tyres, or you’ll be ditching them halfway down a track somewhere) and have plenty of tread, and that your spares are at the correct pressure. Test run your winch, driving lights and radio comms as well. And it’s also a good time to stock up on spares: radiator hoses, fuses, oil filters and air filters, brake pads, oils etc. But there’s no use carrying spares if you don’t know how to fit them – do a basic mechanical course at your local TAFE in the months before you head out … it’s money very well spent! If you (not your vehicle) are the one who has broken down however, well … you can’t get spares for that …
And while courses are great, each vehicle is different – some markedly so. This is where a comprehensive vehicle workshop manual will come in very handy. Do your research, and choose the books that the specialist mechanics actually use. These books can be bulky, so see if there is a digital version available for your tablet or laptop. As vehicles become more sophisticated things like ‘limp modes’ are becoming more prevalent, whereby vehicles will drop to their lowest suspension height, or decrease power, in order to limp back to the mechanic. A comprehensive workshop manual might just give you the information to negotiate this kind of problem.
Rule six … do a course and carry a first aid kit. Medical help can be days away, so you’ll need to be able to look after yourself until it arrives. At least one person in the group (preferably two, and in different vehicles) needs to have a good kit and be proficient in remote area first aid. You can do a course over a few days and for the cost of around $400, it’s a good investment for the safety of your family and friends.
Do a thorough check of your kit before you head out to make sure all supplies are topped up and everything is where it should be. Be sure that any travellers in your group have their personal medications with them, and keep a list in the first aid kit of who takes what in case you need to advise your rescuers. In the event that you are calling for help due to a medical emergency, try to give as detailed a description of the problem over the sat phone or radio as possible; and make your location is easy to find by giving coordinates and lighting a fire.
In the event of an accident, follow your first aid training to the letter.
Rule six … Common sense prevents common mistakes. Australia can be an unforgiving place and you can only work in harmony with something you understand. Overseas tourists have perished in our deserts due to not having a good comprehension of the conditions they are driving into. Researching your destination is not just about plotting it on a map; find out average temperatures, distances between towns, driving/track conditions; and find out (jump on a forum) about the experiences that others have had. Never driven corrugations or dealt with washouts before? Know your enemy, as the saying goes … do your research and do an accredited training course. Not only will you learn a lot – but they are fun and a great way to make friends!
The Outback is no place to show off. The name of game is to get from start to finish unscathed and have a relaxing, enjoyable trip on the way. It’s not a race, it’s not about who is the best and it’s not about ‘conquering’ the terrain … work with the land, respect it, and it will treat you well.
One safety measure that is often overlooked (with disastrous results) is stopping periodically to check under the vehicle. The reasons? ‘It’s too hot … it’s okay, I can’t see anything from here … it will slow us down’. A fire will slow you down, for good. Grasses and vegetation (especially Spinifex) can get caught up under your vehicle and catch fire very easily. Even a small amount – like you may see growing sparsely in the middle of the track – can end up in contact with your hot exhaust and quickly catch alight. There have been stories of travellers pulling up for lunch only to see their vehicle burst into flames while they are finishing their sandwiches. Stop repeatedly … every 500 metres of so if you are slugging through it. And don’t stop, then wander off to check it later; do it the minute you pull up, as your exhaust will remain hot for some time. Get right up under your vehicle and have a really good look.
Another one is not checking or walking a water crossing. You never know what lies a metre either side of your wheel tracks. Learn more about these techniques in the Pat Callinan’s 4X4 Starter Guide.
When it comes to survival techniques, you can’t just jump in your 4X4 and go. There’s a lot of preparation for remote area travel, with some people spending up to six months just doing the planning. There are things like water and fuel supplies to calculate, fire extinguishers and EPIRBS to organise, your sat phone needs to be connected, and there’s that First Aid course to do.
Finally, recovering a vehicle from a remote location will be costly. It’s not just a case of calling your regular roadside service call centre and throwing your vehicle onto the back of a truck; it can run into thousands of dollars if you are needing to be dragged over sand dunes or through rivers. It’s a major operation and can cause a major dent in your bank balance. And don’t be tempted to just abandon your vehicle either – huge fines apply for this.
Remember: If you do break down in a remote area, you can survive until help arrives if you put some effort into planning beforehand.
Words by Ian Glover.
We are going to birdsville in 3 weeks we have spent 14 months preparing for the trip i have involved the QLD & SA Police also the RFDS and locals we are confident we have coverd all possible fault mesures