TWAS a sight that the rock-hard manager of one of the Australian Outback’s remotest cattle stations never expected to see as he drove along a rutted dirt track. From out of the bush stumbled an emaciated, sun-blistered human being.“It would have scared anybody,” Mark Clifford told The Times. “You can’t imagine how remote it is out here. To be driving in the late afternoon and have a man come out of the bush is very scary.”
For Ricky Megee, 35, the sight of Mr Clifford’s battered 4x4 was a miracle. He had survived for three months on a diet of frill-necked lizards, snakes, leeches and frogs, after becoming lost while driving more than 3,000 miles (4,800km) across Australia from Brisbane to a job on the northwest coast.
He was barely able to walk. He had lost 132lb (59kg) and weighed less than 7st 2lb (45kg). His skin had been turned brittle and dark by weeks in the sun. ...