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Tasmania specific bushwalking discussion. Please avoid publishing details of access to sensitive areas with no tracks.Extraordinary and lucky rescues in Tasmania
Sat 29 Dec, 2018 1:45 pm
Hello all....
I was talking to a friend yesterday about lucky rescues or survival stories from the Tasmanian wilderness. We were specifically discussing the case of that very odd chap - must have been around 15 years ago - who disappeared (off the overland track, I think) for 40 days with no gear, food or bushwalking experience and survived. He was paid a significant sum for an interview (which I recall was incredibly bizarre with him talking about having discovered a secret universal number or something while he was lost), but afterwards most people expressed doubt about the truth of the story. I guess this is also relevant to the current case discussed elsewhere in the forum.
I'd like to draw on the collective memory of the forum to ask:
What is the longest amount of time anyone has been lost in the Tasmanian wilderness before turning up alive (and how did they manage to survive?)?
I'm sure there are both documented cases, and ones that slipped under the radar. My very cursory internet research seems to point towards 6 days lost as being the longest anyone anywhere in Australia let alone Tasmania seems to be able to survive being lost in the bush.
Thanks
I was talking to a friend yesterday about lucky rescues or survival stories from the Tasmanian wilderness. We were specifically discussing the case of that very odd chap - must have been around 15 years ago - who disappeared (off the overland track, I think) for 40 days with no gear, food or bushwalking experience and survived. He was paid a significant sum for an interview (which I recall was incredibly bizarre with him talking about having discovered a secret universal number or something while he was lost), but afterwards most people expressed doubt about the truth of the story. I guess this is also relevant to the current case discussed elsewhere in the forum.
I'd like to draw on the collective memory of the forum to ask:
What is the longest amount of time anyone has been lost in the Tasmanian wilderness before turning up alive (and how did they manage to survive?)?
I'm sure there are both documented cases, and ones that slipped under the radar. My very cursory internet research seems to point towards 6 days lost as being the longest anyone anywhere in Australia let alone Tasmania seems to be able to survive being lost in the bush.
Thanks
Re: Extraordinary and lucky rescues in Tasmania
Sat 29 Dec, 2018 2:54 pm
Ben Maloney you might be referring to. It was off the Southern Range.
Re: Extraordinary and lucky rescues in Tasmania
Sat 29 Dec, 2018 4:42 pm
That's the one!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... power.html
2001.
I love the quote where he says after the first 12 days he decided "I didn't really need food". And how he dumped most of his gear too. And ate mushrooms "If they were nice and yummy".
I also loved the comment "I've been tested before and I knew I could cope".
I recall there was a paid interview with this chap afterwards, and he made a number of comments about the biblical 40 days and having discovered a mystical number that bound the universe together or some such thing.
Love to know how he is doing these days.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... power.html
2001.
I love the quote where he says after the first 12 days he decided "I didn't really need food". And how he dumped most of his gear too. And ate mushrooms "If they were nice and yummy".
I also loved the comment "I've been tested before and I knew I could cope".
I recall there was a paid interview with this chap afterwards, and he made a number of comments about the biblical 40 days and having discovered a mystical number that bound the universe together or some such thing.
Love to know how he is doing these days.
Re: Extraordinary and lucky rescues in Tasmania
Sat 29 Dec, 2018 4:46 pm
Im not sure where I heard this but I think the Lumpy uneven tent platform underneath PB was named after him..... At the time there was certainly some doubts in his story, but only he knows what really happened.
Re: Extraordinary and lucky rescues in Tasmania
Sat 29 Dec, 2018 4:59 pm
Quite a story. He came across as quite severely bonkers and bizarre in the interview.
He came up in conversation as a friend of mine recounted how her party (four women) were out walking at the same time (2001) and were constantly shadowed by another (male) walker about 20 metres off-trail who refused to respond to calls of hello from the group. For about two days. They were utterly petrified and turned back on the third day. I think it was in a different area through.
He came up in conversation as a friend of mine recounted how her party (four women) were out walking at the same time (2001) and were constantly shadowed by another (male) walker about 20 metres off-trail who refused to respond to calls of hello from the group. For about two days. They were utterly petrified and turned back on the third day. I think it was in a different area through.
Re: Extraordinary and lucky rescues in Tasmania
Sat 29 Dec, 2018 5:02 pm
Here's an excerpt from the ABC archives.
Controversy as walker sells his story
PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
The World Today Archive - Tuesday, 24 April , 2001 00:00:00
Reporter: Maura Angle
JOHN HIGHFIELD: Well there's more controversy today over the young hiker who walked out of the Tasmanian wilderness after sparking an extensive search estimated to have cost somewhere between 25 and $50,000; a search which clearly put other people's lives at risk.
Twenty-seven year old Benjamin Maloney spent 35 days in the south-west wilderness and was given up for dead. It's a very inhospitable area, but there's now outrage in Tasmania that he's sold his story for some $10,000. There's also some amusement at how he plans to spend the money.
Mr Maloney says he wants to use his windfall to examine the relationship between mathematics, God and religion.
Maura Angle in Hobart.
MAURA ANGLE: Benjamin Maloney walked out of Tasmania's south-west on Friday. He'd spent the previous five weeks in some of the thickest wilderness in the country; the final 14 days without any food.
Like many other survivors before him, Mr Maloney sold his story, which was aired on commercial television last night, and today he is defending his decision.
He's told Radio National's Life Matters program the deal wasn't worth as much as people thought and he plans to use the proceeds studying the relationship between God and mathematics.
BENJAMIN MALONEY: All the money that I'm proclaimed to be getting by all these media and that, it'll probably come to about $10,000.
I am going to employ three mathematicians and three computer programmers to complete my research project on mathematical truth, and that's a sort of a relationship between my religion, my mathematics and God and religion. It'll be beneficial to me and probably may be the world might even benefit from what I do.
MAURA ANGLE: Ben Maloney says he was never really lost. He could see where he wanted to go most of the time, he just had trouble getting there because of the dense undergrowth. He also says despite what experiences bushwalkers and search and rescue personnel say, he did have enough equipment.
An extensive air and land search was conducted for Mr Maloney and there have been calls for him to help cover some of the costs. But he says that's not his concern.
BENJAMIN MALONEY: The fact that it cost $50,000 - whoever's $50,000 that is, I don't know whose pocket that came out of; that $50,000 may have went into people - they might - I'm not too sure what - that's not my field or area.
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Sure.
BENJAMIN MALONEY: I have no knowledge of that. If it's only money - money's the least important thing in the world. It doesn't really matter. It's really not my area or concern.
MAURA ANGLE: But one of the volunteer walkers who helped look for Mr Maloney, Greg Rubock, does not share his views.
GREG RUBOCK: He may think that money's the least important - most least important thing in the world, but it's certainly an important thing to the limited resources of the State Emergency Service. Each time they embark on one of these searches, it's a drain on their limited funds.
MAURA ANGLE: Mr Rubock says Ben Maloney should be more grateful.
GREG RUBOCK: We're just bemused by his attitude now I think. He's showed hardly any gratitude to the people who went out searching for him. He's also - he's not all that grateful of actually - his life being saved. He just sees that it's down to him; fair enough. He got himself out of the wilderness, but he's a very lucky person to be alive. He's just not showing the gratitude of someone who's come out of an experience that he's had.
MAURA ANGLE: And the reaction on talk-back radio this morning has been similar.
CALLER: And to be - well, this is my right, give me what I ask, sort of thing.
CALLER: If this chap has sort of said that money is no object, why doesn't he pay the 10,000 he was paid, back to the Government. Our Government need it.
CALLER: He doesn't seem very remorseful about the $50,000 that had been spent to go to look for him. He doesn't seem to realise that people have been out there and they haven't been paid, they're volunteers.
JOHN HIGHFIELD: Some home truths to ABC radio from talk-back callers this morning. Maura Angle in Hobart.
Controversy as walker sells his story
PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
The World Today Archive - Tuesday, 24 April , 2001 00:00:00
Reporter: Maura Angle
JOHN HIGHFIELD: Well there's more controversy today over the young hiker who walked out of the Tasmanian wilderness after sparking an extensive search estimated to have cost somewhere between 25 and $50,000; a search which clearly put other people's lives at risk.
Twenty-seven year old Benjamin Maloney spent 35 days in the south-west wilderness and was given up for dead. It's a very inhospitable area, but there's now outrage in Tasmania that he's sold his story for some $10,000. There's also some amusement at how he plans to spend the money.
Mr Maloney says he wants to use his windfall to examine the relationship between mathematics, God and religion.
Maura Angle in Hobart.
MAURA ANGLE: Benjamin Maloney walked out of Tasmania's south-west on Friday. He'd spent the previous five weeks in some of the thickest wilderness in the country; the final 14 days without any food.
Like many other survivors before him, Mr Maloney sold his story, which was aired on commercial television last night, and today he is defending his decision.
He's told Radio National's Life Matters program the deal wasn't worth as much as people thought and he plans to use the proceeds studying the relationship between God and mathematics.
BENJAMIN MALONEY: All the money that I'm proclaimed to be getting by all these media and that, it'll probably come to about $10,000.
I am going to employ three mathematicians and three computer programmers to complete my research project on mathematical truth, and that's a sort of a relationship between my religion, my mathematics and God and religion. It'll be beneficial to me and probably may be the world might even benefit from what I do.
MAURA ANGLE: Ben Maloney says he was never really lost. He could see where he wanted to go most of the time, he just had trouble getting there because of the dense undergrowth. He also says despite what experiences bushwalkers and search and rescue personnel say, he did have enough equipment.
An extensive air and land search was conducted for Mr Maloney and there have been calls for him to help cover some of the costs. But he says that's not his concern.
BENJAMIN MALONEY: The fact that it cost $50,000 - whoever's $50,000 that is, I don't know whose pocket that came out of; that $50,000 may have went into people - they might - I'm not too sure what - that's not my field or area.
RADIO ANNOUNCER: Sure.
BENJAMIN MALONEY: I have no knowledge of that. If it's only money - money's the least important thing in the world. It doesn't really matter. It's really not my area or concern.
MAURA ANGLE: But one of the volunteer walkers who helped look for Mr Maloney, Greg Rubock, does not share his views.
GREG RUBOCK: He may think that money's the least important - most least important thing in the world, but it's certainly an important thing to the limited resources of the State Emergency Service. Each time they embark on one of these searches, it's a drain on their limited funds.
MAURA ANGLE: Mr Rubock says Ben Maloney should be more grateful.
GREG RUBOCK: We're just bemused by his attitude now I think. He's showed hardly any gratitude to the people who went out searching for him. He's also - he's not all that grateful of actually - his life being saved. He just sees that it's down to him; fair enough. He got himself out of the wilderness, but he's a very lucky person to be alive. He's just not showing the gratitude of someone who's come out of an experience that he's had.
MAURA ANGLE: And the reaction on talk-back radio this morning has been similar.
CALLER: And to be - well, this is my right, give me what I ask, sort of thing.
CALLER: If this chap has sort of said that money is no object, why doesn't he pay the 10,000 he was paid, back to the Government. Our Government need it.
CALLER: He doesn't seem very remorseful about the $50,000 that had been spent to go to look for him. He doesn't seem to realise that people have been out there and they haven't been paid, they're volunteers.
JOHN HIGHFIELD: Some home truths to ABC radio from talk-back callers this morning. Maura Angle in Hobart.
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