WA: Free spirits meet a lonely death in WA's vicious desert

AAP General News (Australia)
04-15-2005
WA: Free spirits meet a lonely death in WA's vicious desert

By Tim Clarke

PERTH, April 14 AAP - A free spirit and sometime bush poet, 21-year-old Mac Cody was
living his dream.

Travelling Australia with his uncle and best mate Brad Richards, 41, and their mongrel
dog VB, the pair worked where they could, labouring, fruit picking but mostly just enjoying
the countryside in their battered 1974 Land Rover.

After their arrival last August in Carnarvon, on Western Australian's Gascoyne coastline,
they remained in high spirits - in Mac's case sometimes a little too high.

With a court appearance on the horizon, the younger man was facing sentence for damaging
an ATM machine, disorderly conduct and resisting the local police.

With no ties to the town, Mac and his uncle decided to move on rather than face the
music, planning to head across the WA desert to Kununurra to pick up more work and avoid
Mac's probable fines.

The decision was to cost both men their lives.

Last Friday, a jackaroo from Wongawol Station was driving along the Talawana Track,
around 70 km east of Cotton Creek on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, when he came
across the dilapidated four-wheel drive.

On closer inspection, the station hand was confronted with the horrific site of both
men, and their dog, lying dead and decomposing underneath the useless vehicle.

They had lain there for at least a week.

Their fate illustrated again the dangers of travelling across some of the world's most
unforgiving terrain without proper planning.

Following the grim discovery, police revealed the pair had taken just 20 litres of
water between them, no extra fuel, no tools and no two-way radio.

Most importantly of all, they had no detailed map.

If they had, they would have known that just nine kilometres east of where they were
stranded was the Georgia Bore, a fully functioning water hole that would have kept them
alive until help arrived.

Instead, the two decided to retrace their steps west, trekking seven kilometres from
their stricken vehicle - and the water hole - before returning to the car, to die.

The lonely and helpless nature of their deaths is what Mac's family - particularly
his mother Jacqui and younger brother Cieron - say they will struggle most with.

Cieron, 20, who lives in the family's home town of Warilla near Wollongong in NSW,
said it was out of character for the pair not to be prepared for all eventualities.

"None of us can comprehend what has happened. We've been over and over it in our minds
trying to rationalise it," Cieron said this week.

"The way they passed away is probably going to be the most difficult thing for us to
come to terms with. It is just so surreal that people still die of thirst."

After the tragedy was made public, WA police said the circumstances of hot weather
and little planning was a "disaster waiting to happen".

"Without wanting to preempt enquiries on behalf of the coroner it appears these men
ventured into one of the most remote parts of WA in an unreliable vehicle without enough
fuel or water," WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said.

"And to make matters worse it seems they didn't tell anyone where they were going,
so no one knew they were overdue."

But Mrs Cody said that her son and her brother were well aware of the possible perils.

"They were well-experienced bushmen. They knew the dangers of the desert, they'd been
in 50C heat before," Mrs Cody told the Australian newspaper.

"It's not because they were idiots and went out there. It was just a terrible chain of events."

The WA police, who say they hear numerous stories of people stranding themselves in
the desert every year, have pleaded with outback adventurers to prepare before leaving
the bitumen.

"The key is for more education for people who go out there," Commissioner O'Callaghan said.

"It is vital travellers thoroughly research water and fuel sources, terrain and likely
weather patterns before setting off on outback trips.

"Our officers shake their heads all the time at the stupidity of some things."

Mr Richards' brother Guy said trying to understand why the men took the route they
did, with the sparse provisions they were found with, was going to be the hardest task.

"What possessed them to go where they've gone, the way they've gone, we can't second
guess. We're astounded and horrified - just shattered," Mr Richards said.

"Our family, we want to stress how important it is when travelling in these harsh areas
to check in with others about your whereabouts and to be properly prepared.

"Prepare yourselves for Australia ... (it) is a vicious place."

But rather than focus on the folly of their final journey, Mr Richards said the family
would remember the pair's liberated life, particularly the philosophy of Mac.

"Even as a little boy he (Cody) wanted to know were the road ended," Mr Richards said.

AAP tc/cjh/sp

KEYWORD: TRACK (AAP NEWSFEATURE - PIX AVAILABLE)

2005 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.