Desert duo die within 9km of water

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Originally uploaded by BLP.

This story was pulled out of today's newspaper.

“Two men who perished in the Western Australian desert made a desperate 14km trek to find water but died not realising they were just 9km from a bore. Police today said the 41-year-old man and his nephew, 21, set off on their journey without enough petrol, water and minus a detailed map showing water sites that could have saved their lives.The two men died on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert after their 31-year-old Land Rover broke down on the remote Talawana Track 51km east of Cotton Creek in the Pilbara. A station hand found the two bodies and that of their dog beside the vehicle on Friday, but police believe they had been dead for at least a week. Evidence shows the men walked west from their vehicle - in temperatures of some 40 degrees Centigrade [104 F] - in the opposite direction from the bore that would have saved them. WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan today suggested the men were so poorly prepared for their trip that the tragedy was not surprising. The advanced state of the bodies' decomposition has so far prevented formal identification, police said.”