Impromptu search party led by ‘personal Crocodile Dundee’ saves the day: Holidaying couple’s wild Red Centre misadventure
‘I THOUGHT he was dead’: An impromptu search party of a diverse group of strangers — led by their own ‘Crocodile Dundee’ — helped save the day for a holidaying couple who encountered a comedy of errors on a Red Centre hike
Centralian Advocate
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AN impromptu search party of a diverse group of strangers — led by their own ‘Crocodile Dundee’ — helped save the day for a holidaying couple from Brisbane who encountered a comedy of errors on a Red Centre hike.
It’s on the extreme side of a classic travel misadventure, with both tears, relief and (eventually) laughter.
It all started on the way back from a stroll throught the Serpentine Gorge near Alice Springs when David Booth, 61, wanted to go to the lookout, but wife Donna Ballinger, 66, had enough exploring for the day and opted to go wait in the car.
“Strange premonition of something bad”
Donna said she “took a mental note of where he was because I had this strange premonition of something bad”.
Back at the carpark, Donna moved the car to the other side of the carpark to avoid the sun, and thought she had better keep an eye out for David while she read her book.
Eventually, she realised David was gone a bit too long and went to the one other car left in the carpark where she met Alice Springs man Josiah Murphy, her own “Crocodile Dundee”, and told him she was worried her husband was not yet back from the lookout and it was getting late.
Soon after Josiah offered to help look and sent messages out on his emergency beacon, a group of hikers from Alice Springs Walking Group and another carload of medical professionals from the Alice Springs Hospital coincidentally showed up to explore the gorge.
Thus ensued the start of an impromptu search party for David.
“A full on search party”
“Joe just jumped in and said, ‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do’,” Donna said.
They started a fire (to create smoke as a signal), while others drove to Glen Helen, where the couple had stayed the previous night to get reception.
“Joe by this stage had got out rope, a sleeping bag, change of clothes and a coat and a big thing of water and went charging off running back down to the gorge,” Donna said.
The pair had talked about if David had fallen, and so Joe swam through the water to the other side to check if he could see a body down below the cliffs.
“I thought he was dead”
After some time Donna was “pretty distressed” and was assuming the worst of David’s welfare, who was left without food, water and warm clothes.
It never occurred to her David had been to the carpark and got a lift to Alice Springs after seeing the car was no longer there, worried about his wife’s whereabouts.
“I was really convinced that he must either be dead, unconscious, had a broken leg, you know and couldn’t respond or something,” Donna said.
Donna and some others were in the gorge yelling out for David.
Meanwhile a couple with a drone coincidentally arrived and joined in the search party.
“In the whole time, it never dawned on me that David was anywhere else,” she said.
“Where is the car?”
David had seen cars parked on the other side of the carpark but “didn’t actually physically walk there and look at each one of them”, and thought Donna may have been in the car roughly 20 minutes by the time he got back.
He said his mind was also running through scenarios, the main one being Donna had left in the car after being annoyed he was taking too long at the lookout.
“But I thought, ‘Nah, that’s really ridiculous. Couldn’t be that mean, she would never leave’,” David said. He then found a lift back to Alice Springs.
Eventually David made his way to the police station where officers helped him file a Welfare Check for Donna.
Not long after another officer said there were reports of a missing man, 61, in a grey T-shirt – David.
“Then I realised that she was safe, and I started crying,” David said.
“Everyone got to work”
Josiah said at the start of the search he had checked the trail along with a hiker he found on the trail, Bella, and soon more people arrived “and all of them got to work”; around 15 people were helping in the search for David.
He described it as “a full on search party”. He got to a point where he was messaging friends in Alice Springs who were trying to seek out an infared drone.
Eventually we hear this “found him!”, Josiah said he heard Donna calling out.
The people who went to Glen Helen had received word David was at Alice Springs Police Station.
When Donna and David finally reunited that night after hours of distress, were they relieved to see each other?
“I just wanted to know why,” Donna said, about David not double checking the car park.
Able to laugh about the misadventure now, the couple “want to say a big thank you to all the great people of Alice that helped.”
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