Backpacking around Australia, I gave harm a lot of chances — but I was lucky

AS a blissfully unaware backpacker more than 10 years ago, Nadja Fleet set off into Australia’s great, dusty unknown. She got in some sticky situations but in hindsight, she knows luck was on her side.

A backpacker’s story: I was naive — and lucky

• THE ATTACK: Taskforce set up to examine charged attacker’s past
• THE RESCUERS: Fishermen speak out after a horrifying night
• THE SCENE: Isolated and quiet, this beach should be a relaxation haven
• THE ACCUSED: Online profiles show man was ‘looking for a wife’

AUSTRALIA had its fair share of backpacker horror stories.

Ivan Milat went down in history after he was jailed for shooting, stabbing, even decapitating seven young travellers before dumping their bodies in shallow graves in the Belanglo State Forest in NSW in the 1990s.

The body of British backpacker Peter Falconio disappeared without a trace after he was travelling along the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory in 2001.

Bradley John Murdoch is serving life in prison for the tourist’s death.

And a German tourist watched her sister being eaten alive by a massive saltwater crocodile in a billabong in Kakadu because their tour guide made “a horrible error of judgment” by letting the girls swim in the croc-infested water at night.

They are all stories that went around the world.

But did I, a German high school student, know about any of them? Nope.

By the time an inquest into the German’s death exposed the gruesome details of the killing in 2004, I had already packed my bags, ready to ­embark on my own adventure in Australia.

I was blinkered. I wanted FUN.

Nadja Fleet travelling through El Questro, Western Australia.

All I cared about was being able to spend a year away, explore new regions, meet interesting people, enjoy the smell of freedom and the lack of responsi­bility, and do all of this with little money.

The result was a trip of a lifetime, jam-packed with ­stories I will never forget.

I spent my first month in a dodgy apartment in the middle of Sydney’s Kings Cross, where junkies blocked my entrance and my friend was cornered by a woman who pressured her to go into prostitution. It wasn’t until a stranger took her hand and dragged her away that she got out of the situation.

I got bogged in a rusty Toyota HiAce along the WA coast because I underestimated the remote path covered in deep sand. Thankfully, a ranger towed us out for no charge.

I took shortcuts along ­deserted dirt tracks in the Northern Territory, which nearly left us stranded with no fuel and little water because I expected a petrol station at every corner. We eventually found one. By that time our van used gravity, not fuel, to roll to the bowser.

I jumped into a billabong that was far off the beaten track in Kakadu because our tour guide promised it was croc free. Sound familiar?

I stayed at houses of people I barely knew.

But money was sparse. And discovering the unknown was half the fun.

And I did all this while enjoy­ing the Australian sun in thongs, no hat and little sunscreen.

My gap year in Australia was a blast — a memory that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

More than a decade later I’m still loving life in Australia.

But at least one aspect has changed.

I now know I gave harm plenty of opportunities to find me but I had luck on my side.

Two young foreign backpackers who narrowly escaped the clutches of their alleged rapist and would-be killer this week now know they were not so lucky.

The details of the attack are still sketchy.

But it’s fair to say those two women’s adventure has turned into an experience so horrific it will scar them for the rest of their lives.

The horror story is likely to travel around the world and stay in the media for weeks, if not years.

Despite all this, somewhere on the planet there will be a young woman or man blissfully unaware of what has ­happened on the South Australian coast.

They will be packing their bags, eager to feel what an Australian adventure tastes like.

NADJA FLEET IS A JOURNALIST AT THE ADVERTISER