A COUPLE who were reported as missing in the Grampians on Sunday evening will get to spend Christmas with their families after they were located safe and well in Halls Gap on Monday afternoon.
The pair were located near Mount Victory Road and Glenelg River Road in the vicinity of the Moora Moora Reservoir after the woman walked through bushland to seek help, leaving the male with their bogged Toyota Hilux.
Western Region Division 2 Southern Grampians Local Area Commander inspector, Steve Thompson, said authorities confirmed the pair had been located alive and well at about 2.45pm Monday.
“She’s walked out, he waited near the vehicle,” he said.
Emergency services then began the process of picking up the man and extricating him from the vehicle.
“To the best of our knowledge he’s okay, he just couldn’t walk that distance,” Mr Thompson said.
It is believed the pair set off on a four-wheel-drive trip from Oakleigh East last Friday, with family members informing authorities they were missing after they failed to return on Sunday evening to pick up their dogs.
The 50-year-old man from Murrumbeena and 37-year-old woman from Oakleigh East last made contact with a family member on Saturday when they sent a photo of themselves in the vicinity of Glenelg River Road at roughly 8.20pm.
Hamilton Police sergeant, Rex Habel, said the image was used as a starting point in the local search for the couple which involved State Emergency Service (SES) units from Dunkeld and Hamilton, police units from Dunkeld, Hamilton, Cavendish, and Coleraine, as well as assistance from DELWP, Parks Victoria, and the Police Air Wing.
“We had information to put them in an area not far from Dunkeld in the Victoria Range, and that was the area where we were concentrating the initial search,” he said.
“Because of a social media post that the female put out showing a photo of a location on a track, we were able to identify where that was and that’s where we had Pol Air circling around, but they weren’t near that area because they had moved on.
“Our searching was to eliminate areas that the vehicle might have been in, that’s where we were using local SES just to start a grid search to try and see if we could check the local tracks and just gradually move through the park northwards.”
Sgt Habel said the incident provided a timely reminder to inform family and/or friends of your whereabouts and plans when heading into the bush or other remote areas.
“The take-home message with this is if you’re going four-wheel-driving in a national park, or four-wheel-driving anywhere, let someone know where you’re going so if something does happen we know where to start looking,” he said.
“Let someone know the area that you intend to go four-wheel-driving in because we were not sure whether (the couple) were still in Grampians National Park or whether they had moved on to somewhere else closer to Melbourne where they’re from.”
A Victoria Police spokesperson confirmed neither person was injured, and both declined ambulance treatment.
