Stranded Briton saved by message in sand
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By Roger Maynard Times 13 December 2003
A BRITISH tourist is recovering this week after being rescued from a remote West Australian beach when a Coastwatch aircraft spotted an SOS message scratched in the sand.
Howard Holdsworth’s water supply was running dangerously low after he spent almost three days stranded on the beach when his vehicle became bogged down.
A Coastwatch Islander aircraft conducting a routine patrol found the four-wheel-drive vehicle at Cape Bertholet, 50 miles north of Broome.
The aircraft made a low pass that enabled the observers to see the SOS, as well as Mr Holdsworth, 54, from Halifax, West Yorkshire.
The Customs National Surveillance Centre in Canberra contacted Broome police, who with the State Emergency Service mounted a rescue operation.
Mr Holdsworth, who was travelling alone, said that he became bogged down after getting lost when he inadvertently drove beyond the nature reserve that was his intended destination. He was not expected to return to Broome until yesterday, so his friends, with whom he had been staying before the trip, did not raise the alarm.
Describing himself as a keen naturalist, Mr Holdsworth said that he had good knowledge of bush survival skills but found the experience frightening. “I’ve got the knowledge but it’s being able to use it, because you are in extreme temperatures that I am not used to . . . it’s hard to think.
“During the day I kept myself in the shade, using as little energy as possible, and I worked through the night trying to get the vehicle out. I must have shifted tonnes of sand, absolutely tonnes.”
Mr Holdsworth shuffled his feet in the wet sand to create the SOS below the high-tide line, to indicate that it had been written recently. “That’s what saved me, because that’s exactly what the Coastwatch people noticed.” Mr Holdsworth’s mother said that she had feared her son was in trouble when he failed to send her one of the e-mails he regularly posts to his family from around the world.
On his latest journey, the Old Harrovian spent time diving and mountain climbing in Vietnam, then visited North Korea before flying to Australia. Dina Holdsworth said: “He has kept in touch every couple of days via the internet and even when he was in the jungles of North Korea he found a little village with a computer and wrote to me.
“I was anxious when he didn’t get in touch, but I’ve spoken to him on the phone now. He’s in good spirits and intends to continue his adventure. He will go on to New Zealand and then to America before coming home in March.” The Holdsworths are the seventh generation of a family of mill-owners from Halifax.
Mrs Holdsworth is the chairman of John Holdsworth & Co, which manufactures upholstery fabrics for public transport, and she runs the company with two of her sons and one of her daughters.
Mr Holdsworth plans to return to Halifax early next year. His sister Ingrid, a personnel manager for the company, said that her brother was a writer and researcher.
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Stranded Briton saved by message in sand
A BRITISH tourist is recovering this week after being rescued from a remote West Australian beach when a Coastwatch aircraft spotted an SOS message scratched in the sand. (22/12/2003)
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Australia to inject $290m to revive tourism
AFP 21 November 2003
The Australian government has attempted to halt a three-year decline in visitor numbers with a A$235-million (S$291-million) rescue package for the tourism industry.
(30/12/2003)
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