German backpacker Carolina Wilga has described how an unexplained sound led her deeper into the Australian bush after she crashed her van and became lost in Western Australia’s remote Wheatbelt region.
Ms Wilga, who was 26 when she disappeared in June 2025, has recounted the ordeal in a new book about the 11 freezing nights she spent surviving alone in the wilderness.
She had been driving through the Karroun Hill Nature Reserve, about 36 kilometres north of Beacon, when she swerved to avoid what she believed was an oncoming vehicle. Her Mitsubishi van left the track, went through a fence and became lodged near a rocky outcrop.
After hitting her head in the crash, Ms Wilga slept in the vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to free it. She later began following a sound she could not identify, moving away from the van and further into the scrub.
In the confused state that followed, she abandoned food, water and warm clothing in the vehicle. She eventually found herself barefoot and dressed only in a dress and linen scarf as temperatures fell during the night.
Carolina Wilga survived on rainwater and plants
Ms Wilga said she survived by chewing leaves, stems and flowers, while drinking rainwater and water from puddles. She sought shelter wherever she could, including a cave, and endured hunger, thirst, insect bites, sunburn and an injured foot.
As her condition deteriorated, she crawled through the bush and followed the setting sun in an attempt to find her way west. The thought of her family waiting for her helped persuade her to keep moving.
She eventually reached a track and spotted signs that she believed indicated a road, including a cowpat, fragments of glass and a rusty drinking can. When a vehicle appeared, she stepped into the road and waved her arms.
The driver was local farmer Tania Henley, who had been returning from Beacon along Mouroubra Road. Ms Henley recognised the missing backpacker after a major search operation had been launched and stopped to help her.
Ms Wilga was found more than 30 kilometres from where her van had been abandoned. She was taken to hospital in Perth after being discovered exhausted, dehydrated, sunburnt and barefoot.
In her account, Ms Wilga described the moment of rescue as overwhelming. She and Ms Henley embraced, with the farmer reassuring her that she was safe.
Her book, Escaping the Outback: My Fight for Survival in the Australian Wilderness, gives a fuller account of the crash, the disorientation that followed and the struggle to remain alive in the remote Western Australian bush.
