7 News: Carolina Wilga’s 2025 disappearance in Western Australia
The 7 news result covered here is 7NEWS Australia’s retrospective on German backpacker Carolina Wilga, who survived 12 days and 11 nights alone in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt in 2025. A year later, she has described parts of the ordeal in a new German-language memoir and in an interview about her recovery.
This is a separate story from reports about damage to Dolly Parton’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star.
Carolina Wilga’s 2025 disappearance in Western Australia
Wilga was exploring the Wheatbelt in June 2025 when her Mitsubishi Delica developed mechanical problems near Beacon, about 250 kilometres north-east of Perth, according to PerthNow’s account of her memoir. Her disappearance prompted an intense search and rescue operation.
She spent 12 days, including 11 nights, away from other people. 7NEWS reported that she was eventually taken aboard a Western Australia Police aircraft in a malnourished and frostbitten condition.
The circumstances of her leaving the vehicle remain difficult for Wilga to explain. In the 7NEWS interview, she recalled seeing lights and feeling a sudden sense of danger before turning the vehicle into a fence. She later left the shelter of the vehicle barefoot while experiencing intense cold and hallucinations, including the impression that stars were falling from the sky.
What Wilga has revealed about the ordeal
Wilga’s account describes a rapidly worsening struggle without food or water. She became disoriented and, after several nights, was still no closer to where she had started. Her memories of the drive from Beacon towards Perth remain incomplete, and she told 7NEWS that some parts of the experience still feel surreal.
The cold nights were especially traumatic. In her interview, Wilga described reaching a point where she believed she would die and made two suicide attempts during the ordeal. She also said that thoughts of her family and her body’s instinct to survive kept her going.
Her memoir gives a more detailed account of the same episode, including her search for food and drinking water, encounters with mosquitoes and difficult vegetation, and the physical and psychological strain of being alone in the remote landscape. PerthNow reported that the book was written in German and is titled Dem Outback entkommen; Mein Überlebenskampf in der australischen Wildnis, translated in the report as Escape from the Outback; My Fight for Survival in the Australian Wilderness.
Her recovery and the memoir’s release
A year after the ordeal, 7NEWS described Wilga as visibly changed from the 26-year-old who was taken to safety. The report said she had no remaining physical scars, although her full memory of the journey had not returned. It also described her as being on a rehabilitative journey and able to discuss the experience with humour and openness.
The memoir is scheduled to go on sale in Germany on 4 September 2026. Wilga said there were no current plans for an English translation, while adding that one might be produced in the future. The latest verified update is therefore that her account is available in German, while English-speaking readers do not yet have a confirmed translation date.