A quarter of a century after he survived the Great Sandy Desert, Robert Bogucki is back for an odd-couple road trip with the Aboriginal tracker who helped search for him all those years ago.
Other young men are missing in the desert and are not being looked for – can Robert resolve unfinished business?
Additional information
If you’d like to read about Robert’s experiences in his own words, his detailed write-up is available free here: www.owtdah.blogspot.com
Credits
Erin Parke: So the sun is just rising and we are tearing down the highway on Karajarri country, south of Broome, down towards the turn-off to the track where Robert Bogucki set off in July of 1999.
This trip's been a long time in the planning.
Erin Parke VO: It's finally happening. Robert Bogucki's going back into the Great Sandy Desert for the first time in almost 26 years.
It hasn't been easy getting to this point. It's taken three years of persistence and the organisational skills of a wedding planner, with Robert and Janet travelling from remote Alaska and a cyclone storm delaying plans.
But it’s paid off.
Robert and Janet are here in a convoy of two cars, belting down the highway.
The plan is to pick up Aboriginal tracker Merridoo Walbidi, who helped search for Robert all those years ago, and head down the track where Robert started out on the desert mission that's become part of Australia’s outback folklore.
I’m bringing together two men, one an Indigenous elder, the other a well-to-do American, with little in common, but their experience of surviving in this desert.
But it turns out one of them has unfinished business that needs to be resolved.
I’m Erin Parke and this is the final episode of Expanse: Nowhere Man.
Erin Parke: And Robert, is the landscape here looking a bit familiar?
Robert Bogucki: It feels like it's getting closer to where I went in. I'll keep my eyes out.
Erin Parke VO: We swing into the small Aboriginal community of Bidyadanga.
It'll be the first time that Robert's meeting this man Meridoo.
Erin Parke: I'm just staying back and trying to give them some space.
I'm a little bit worried because Merridoo has been sounding a little, almost hostile about meeting Robert.
Last night he actually rang me at about nine o'clock and said that he didn't want to come and he didn't want to meet the American.
This morning we’ve been able to get things back on track, we had another chat and he was sounding okay, but I don't know how today's going to go.
Erin Parke VO: The men greet each other and shake hands. They are respectful, but reserved.
We pile back into the vehicles, for the two-hour drive to the desert turn-off.
Robert's mood is hard to read. He’s pensive, thoughtful, as he watches the sparse landscape flash by.
I’m impressed he’s agreed to make this trip, out of respect for Merridoo and the other trackers.
But I can't tell if he's pleased to be back or maybe if it's bringing back bad memories.
Erin Parke: Did you ever really intend to come back?
Robert Bogucki: Uh, no. Never crossed my mind that I would be coming back. That's all your doing, Erin.
Erin Parke: And, um, I know it's a tricky question, but how do you feel?
Robert Bogucki: Um, yeah, that's going to change throughout the day. So right now I just have anticipation.
Erin Parke VO: We find the oil drum that marks the turn-off to where Robert started his journey and we swing off the highway, plunging inland, leaving behind the street signs and phone reception.
Erin Parke: Yeah, yeah, I've got that little map. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure.
Erin Parke VO: Thirty kilometres inland, Robert has a flash of recognition. We pull over for a close look. It's the place Robert slept on the first night of his journey.
Robert Bogucki: I camped out right along the fence over here, and then the next day I put the bike over the fence and went to the other side.
Erin Parke VO: So far on the trip, Merridoo’s been quiet. Sitting in the back seat of the car, his face impassive. But now he's climbed out and I notice him and Robert chatting.
Robert Bogucki: Maybe half a day of pushing the bicycle.
Merridoo Walbidi: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robert Bogucki: And then I said, I dropped the bicycle.
Merridoo Walbidi: Yeah, yeah.
Erin Parke VO: They’re comparing notes about what happened in 1999. Two men from opposite sides of the globe who’s paths would never have crossed if it wasn’t for that moment 26 years ago, when one man was missing and the other tried to save him.
I'm glad they're getting on, but I can feel some tension.
Merridoo is stern-faced as he watches Robert poking around the bush and it feels like there's a reckoning ahead.
Erin Parke: Once the waitress always a waits.
Janet North: You got water?
Erin Parke VO: We resume our strange journey into the Great Sandy Desert, and someone spots of a caravan of camels.
Merridoo Walbidi: Look at them! Everywhere! One, two, three four. Big mob.
Erin Parke VO: And yes, I Googled it, the collective noun for camels is caravan in case you’ve ever wondered.
Robert Bogucki: I think we’re stopping.
Erin Parke VO: While we're pulled over, Merridoo beckons me over, and tells me something in a low voice.
Merridoo Walbidi: Remember when you go to the yard on your left, stop there and wait for me.
Erin Parke VO: We’re going to stop soon, he tells me, for an important ceremony.
The American needs to apologise. He was wrong to come into this dangerous country alone, without asking the traditional owners, and risking death.
This is not good. I’d expected some sort of formality, maybe some quick speeches up the track to mark the occasion. But an apology? I don't think Robert's planning to apologise. He wouldn’t know why it’s important to Merridoo
Because there's a lot about Merridoo that Robert doesn't know.
Things the Aboriginal elder only told me recently around the campfire. That I can’t stop thinking about as we drive down the rough track into the desert.
See, during his lifetime, Merridoo's lost far more in this desert than any of us realised.
And there’s a reason for the occasional flashes of hostility towards the American.
He knows first-hand just how quickly people can die in this desert and he knows the legacy of pain for those left behind.
Before Merridoo’s family left the desert, they led a peaceful life. But he says it was also a hard life.
His Mum, Dad, two brothers and sister, striving to find enough water to survive.
They knew the rhythms of the landscape intimately. You had to, or else you'd die.
Merridoo Walbidi: We were just watching out for rain season. As soon as the rain season start and we build up and we walk. Keep going.
Erin Parke VO: And then, when Merridoo was about ten years old, something happened that changed everything.
Merridoo had one younger brother. A cheerful, energetic little boy.
Merridoo Walbidi: He was the youngest one. He was just growing up. Six, seven years old.
Erin Parke VO: The family was camped out on the eastern edges of the Great Sandy Desert and had drunk some water from a small soak.
It happened suddenly, Merridoo says. The little boy began to struggle to breathe.
Merridoo remembers his mother cradling the little boy on the ground.
Merridoo Walbidi: I don't know what he had, you know. He was like this (pants). He stopped breathing and he run out of wind.
I don't know what sickness he had. He died from just natural sickness. Or would be spirit that got him, you know?
Erin Parke: I'm so sorry that you lost your brother like that.
Merridoo Walbidi: And Dad and Mum try everything, you know. Singing, Mum and dad sing him trying to get him back. No, too late.
But he's gone and he left us out in the desert.
Erin Parke VO: In case you didn't catch that, Merridoo's saying his Mum and Dad sang to their youngest son, trying to harness the spirits to bring him back.
But it was no good.
The parents struck their head in a traditional, cultural expression of grief as the boy lay silent and still under a small tree.
Meridoo Walbidi: Straight away, Mum and Dad start pick up a stone, rock and hitting him themself. And my sister and brother and I did the same thing.
We were all blood running down from our head to our body.
In a custom way. Why am I still alive when my, my brothers there lying dead?
Erin Parke VO: Merridoo says his grief stricken mother wailed in the night time.
They knew they would have to leave him there.
It was a dry time of year, there was little water around, and the other families had disappeared from the desert making it even more dangerous to stay in this isolated place, where this terrible thing had happened.
Merridoo Walbidi: But we hear dad saying, ‘We going to leave this place, we going to walk’. So we left that place forever. We left our country forever.
Erin Parke VO: Merridoo's father had decided. The desert had become too dangerous and the family would begin their long, slow walk across the Great Sandy Desert. To the coastline, to the white world.
When they reached the coast, there were tearful reunions with long-lost family, who'd come out of the desert years before.
But all had stories of death.
Merridoo Walbidi: They're the same grieving, just like we went through. Grieving for my young brother and first big sister. Then Mum and Daddy especially.
Erin Parke VO: So Merridoo finds it strange that non-Indigenous people romanticise life in the desert.
And he finds it really strange that a man like Robert Bogucki would deliberately go out there alone.
Merridoo misses the landscapes, and the stories, the starry skies and the sense of wellbeing that comes from being out on his country. But he tells me he'd rather be safe. Be where there is clean water and fresh food.
And where there is medicine to fix children who fall sick.
Meridoo Walbidi: It was hard life. Lucky I'm not there anymore.
Erin Parke VO: So when Merridoo heard about this man Robert Bogucki going into the desert on a quest for enlightenment, he felt worried and angry.
He's glad the American came out alive.
But for Merridoo, Robert is also the embodiment of carelessness. Of privileged people who don't appreciate how precious it is to be alive, because they've never watched on as the desert left a loved one dead.
And who don’t understand how, for Merridoo and other Aboriginal people, life and death and country are all deeply connected, and not to be messed with.
So that's why I'm a bit anxious about how this final showdown will go.
None of this is Robert’s fault, or Robert’s responsibility. And he’s come out here in good faith.
It’s not his fault the wider world’s never cared about Merridoo's survival story. And that he's only ever asked to help when a white man goes missing.
Our road trip with Robert resumes. As the day's heating up and tummy's are rumbling, Merridoo decides it's time to stop.
He communicates this silently - slicing the air with a pointed hand to show here; now; stop; quickly.
Janet North: Are we driving again?
Erin Parke: We're just going to find a bit that's got some shade..."
Merridoo Walbidi: Where we going, we going to camp a dingo or what?
Erin Parke: Shall we eat first Merridoo?
Erin Parke VO: We set up a makeshift lunch camp.
I suspect I’m not the only one who feels a bit apprehensive. I think Robert can tell something is brewing, but none of us know quite what.
Merridoo Walbidi: I don't have a chair with me, I'll sit down in the sand.
Erin Parke VO: When he's finished his lunch, Merridoo paces quietly around the camp, collecting dry wood and leaves to build a fire for a smoking ceremony.
It feels like a bit of a high fire risk kind of a time, but I dare not say anything.
Merridoo Walbidi: I want to make a fire right here. You can light a fire now. Get a dry little, toilet paper whatever.
Erin Parke VO: Merridoo tells me it’s time for the smoking ceremony to start .
Merridoo Walbidi: Everybody will go through smoking, this smoking ceremony.
It’s time for us to walk through the fragrant smoke of the fire.
And Merridoo directs Robert to go first.
Merridoo Walbidi: Everybody follow him.
Erin Parke: So, breathe in a little bit of smoke.
Merridoo Walbidi: Yeah, breath in. This is smoking ceremony. When you go past next time spirit will smell you - I know. I know these people. I let them pass.
Erin Parke VO: It’s an ancient ritual that Merridoo says will keep us safe, cleansing the area of bad spirits and letting the country know that we’re here and we mean well.
It goes unspoken, Robert didn't do this in 1999.
Back then, the trackers could feel that bad spirits were stalking him. The country uncomfortable with the presence of this troubled soul.
Merridoo leans in and tells me it’s time. Time for Robert to apologise.
Meridoo Walbidi: Put your flame down, mate. Flame down. Only smoke got to be.
Erin Parke VO: We gather in a circle, and Merridoo tells Robert to stand in the centre.
Merridoo Walbidi: You want to get up and say sorry? I got something to give you. Yeah,
Robert Bogucki: Stand up here?
Merridoo Walbidi: Yeah.
Robert Bogucki: Okay.
Erin Parke VO: The wind suddenly picks up, whipping up the hot coals of the campfire, while Robert stands uncomfortably in front of the heat, hands behind his back, head bowed, in front of Merridoo
Robert's clearly anxious. He's unsure of what's to come and what's expected of him.
But he's clearly required to pay his respects and somehow try to make amends for breaching cultural protocol all those years ago.
Robert Bogucki: Thank you my friend. I very much appreciate you letting me walk through your yard to learn the things I needed to learn.
And thank you for coming to look for me and helping me through it from a distance.
I will take this knowledge and I won't forget it and I will try to use it to the best of my ability. For everybody's purpose.
Erin Parke VO: Robert has not apologised. But he's been gracious, and been humble. And in that moment, as he stands before Merridoo, it feels like he's taking one for the team.
For all the clueless white people, the gudiya people, who move around these vast Australian landscapes with no knowledge of whose land their on and no concept of what’s gone before. And none of the survival skills that are no longer needed and no longer valued.
Merridoo Walbidi: Turn around around. Turn around. Stand up.
Erin Parke VO: Merridoo orders us to our feet, and he stands in front of Robert, looking him in the eye.
Merridoo Walbidi: We must walk together, walk together
You're a good man. You know, you give something back.
Erin Parke VO: The men exchange gifts, and they hug, and the tension is broken.
Merridoo Walbidi: Thank you very much for coming.
Robert Bogucki: Thank you it been a pleasure to meet you, even though we didn't meet the first time out here.
Erin Parke VO: Robert and Merridoo remain sitting in the sand under the tree, reminiscing.
Both men did epic walks across the great Sandy Desert, 35 years apart.
Merridoo and his family trying to stay alive and Robert seeking a sign from God that life was worth living.
They couldn't be from more different backgrounds, but it's clear the desert has given them a strong bond.
Robert Bogucki: When I come out of the bush and I start talking to people, I really don't think they understood what I was talking about.
When I come and talk to local people and they just get it, everybody just knows what I'm saying when I talk about the spirits.
Erin Parke VO: Out in the desert Robert felt he was being stalked by a feeling of despair and darkness.
So It makes sense to him when Merridoo describes the bad spirit the trackers sensed was following him. The featherfoot man, the invisible spirit figure who can snatch away those who venture into land uninvited.
Merridoo Walbidi: Please tell every Australian, all the white people, to be careful.
Erin Parke: And what are you saying people need to be careful about?
Merridoo Walbidi: Spiritual thing. Spiritual people just live in that country secretly just take you away very, very easily. You can't see them. Just lift you up, take you away.
Erin Parke VO: Everyone needs to be careful in outback Australia, Merridoo warns.
The land is powerful. And we’re not as in control as we like to think we are.
Merridoo Walbidi: It's very hard. You know, Australia is tough country, dangerous country. Never play around, wander off by yourself, okay?
Erin Parke VO: As the sun begins to set, we pack up and pile back into the cars, and I find myself alone for the first time all day
Erin Parke: It's a huge thunderstorm looming ahead, and we're just getting the first smatterings of rain. It was a lot to take in today.
Robert's very hard to read, but Merridoo was very vocal about how much it meant to him. I almost felt like a bit of a sense of closure for him, because I think for him it's not just about meeting Robert Bogucki, but it's more broadly about sharing his story and people being interested in his story.
Erin Parke VO: On the long drive home, I find myself thinking more about why Robert’s disappearance in the desert attracted so much attention when other cases don’t.
Over the time I've been recording this story, four Aboriginal men have vanished in the area in strange circumstances. And friends and family have held rallies demanding more searching and more media attention.
Rally speaker: Across our state, men are disappearing, and yet it seems that their cases do not receive the attention and the urgency that they deserve.
Erin Parke VO: Why hasn't everyone mobilised to try to find these men the same way they did for Robert Bogucki?
Police insist the search response is the same no matter who the person is. But it seems the public is less interested when the missing man’s a local fella who's supposed to have some spiritual connection to the land, as opposed to being a wealthy white foreigner.
Former policeman Lindsay Greatorex says the men and their families, they deserve more attention than what they're getting.
Lindsay Greatorex: These aboriginal men that are getting lost out in the bush, it remains a mystery with a lot of these disappearances because remains haven't been found.
You've always got the question, was there a foul play? Or did they simply get lost disorientated and somewhere there remains have never been found. So yeah, it's a mystery.
Erin Parke VO: A few days later I say goodbye to Robert and Janet at the local airport.
It was good of them to come back, to show respect to Merridoo and the trackers.
And it seems like it’s meant a lot to Robert.
Robert Bogucki: I had just a feeling at the time these guys were kindred spirits and, uh, you know, it was a bit of closure after all this time to go meet them on their land and say thank you.
It feels like coming full circle.
Erin Parke VO: I feel like I’m coming full circle too. Closing in on those life and death questions that have loomed over this from the beginning.
Like, how did Robert survive for such an extraordinarily long period of time with so little food and water?
According to Robert, towards the end of his journey he survived a full two weeks without drinking.
People who know him put it down to his physical fitness and steely determination. But Robert attributes it to his faith in God, based on a love of life, rather than a fear of death.
Robert Bogucki: One time I was walking around in the sun and passing out rather frequently from the heat. And at that point modern science would say, ‘Oh you're about to die’. But I was just feeling elation.
That was, that's as close as I got, you know. That's not death. That's encouragement to live.
Erin Parke VO: When I first contacted Robert Bogucki, I wanted to know what he learned when he was close to death. And when I finally ask him, what he says surprises me.
The full spiritual experience is too nuanced to capture in a podcast, but as Robert teetered close to death he experienced profound private moments, accepting his powerlessness and imminent mortality.
But the main thing he learnt was a renewed faith in God. And the discovery of a spiritual strength he didn’t know was possible.
But he reckons it’s the same resilience that people draw upon all over the world every day, overcoming challenges that – unlike his desert quest – will never attract headlines or attention.
While Robert chose to push into hardship to test his mettle, others learn it via circumstances outside of their control. Through everyday life.
Robert Bogucki: You have strength, you don't know you have.
Not everybody is going to go for a walk in a desert, but they'll have their own troubles, trials and tribulations. It could be college for some people or a job or raising children.
Everybody's got their own thing that's going to fulfil them. And you know, it may not be walking along the edge of the abyss. In their daily life, you know, they have people to take care of, or their cross to bear.
And everybody's cross is in one sense the same, but at the same time is different.
Erin Parke: What is the one thing that you sort of hope that maybe people might hear or take away?
Robert Bogucki: God is watching and, you know, he wants your attention. And it's not a dogma thing, you know, you're going to be rewarded at the end by presents. You're going to be rewarded because you'll feel like fulfilment, like you're doing something worthwhile. You'll feel more alive.
Erin Parke: ‘Cause over the years, humans have got more than we've ever had before in that we've been able to buffer ourselves successfully from pretty much all discomfort, and yet we are less happy than ever before. So what can we take from that?
Robert Bogucki: It's pretty clear that the answer is, uh, you know, to get back to respecting the earth and having a connection with it. When you're in the city and everything's so easy to get, you don't really look out at the trees and the rocks and look at them as something you can have a relationship with.
And when you tear away all that modern world stuff, you can feel it. Your ego drops, your stop looking at yourself in the mirror. Don't take your phone out there and take selfies, 'cause it's not conducive to the spirit path. It's not conducive to life in anyway.
Erin Parke VO: As someone who’s addicted to my phone, I find this a bit confronting. But it rings true. The vanity of social media can be exhausting, the constant showcasing of our lives.
It’s the antithesis of what Robert sought in the desert, and surely it’s feeding the vague feeling of discontent that so many of us feel.
Like former reporter Ben Martin points out, people now pay money to try to find the solitude that Robert Bogucki achieved.
Ben Martin: People are paying thousands of dollars to go to yoga retreats where no one talks so that they can completely disconnect and just think.
It's fascinating to me that you can sit on Instagram and look at posts about mindfulness. When actually if you just put your phone down and actually took time to think and be you might end up having the same or a better result. I think the depth of thought that Robert was seeking was probably lost on a lot of people.
Erin Parke VO: It was easy to make fun of ‘Kooky Bogucki’, as he was nicknamed.
But, what Robert was chasing in the desert feels more relevant than ever.
It’s like we no longer know how to be alone. But at the same time, we feel lonelier than ever before.
They’re heavy thoughts. But as I prepare to wrap up recording, there’s also funny stuff that keeps popping up.
Aboriginal elder Merridoo Walbidi laughs himself silly showing me a new painting he’s done. Of a clueless white girl lost in the bush, which he reckons would be me if I tried to go into the desert alone.
Probably a fair call.
And I come across a poem written back in 1999, it’s kind of like a bush ballad that captures the jokey vibe of things at the time.
My colleague Vanessa agrees to do a special reading at Friday night drinks, for some of the local crew who were around in Broome in ‘99 when it all played out.
Vanessa Mills: Is there any more bubbles?
Erin Parke: Yeah, I'm getting it right now.
Vanessa Mills: Alright, so this is a poem not written by me, but very kindly shared with us this evening.
This is the Ballad of Bogucki
Early at the desert, you could see him arrive. He stood five foot 11 and weighed about 55.
He disappeared in the Great Sandy, without even a word. With nothing more than the odd wind-swept footprint and occasional turd
Erin Parke VO: Whether he likes it or not, Robert Bogucki has become part of Australia's outback mythology, that loves to celebrate wacky characters and feats of survival
But I wonder these days, when we’re so quick to slam people’s actions online, is there still space for people to do unusual things? To challenge norms of behaviour and live to tell the tale? Or maybe outback Australia is becoming a bit more like everywhere else. A bit blander. Because everyone’s too worried about being judged.
Vanessa Mills: The yarn was an absolute cracker. You forgot about your stinky colleagues or the desert sand wedged up your clacker.
Erin Parke VO: The saga of Robert Bogucki turned into a television spectacular and it polarised opinion the world over about whether it’s selfish or inspired to risk your life for enlightenment.
But looking back now it reveals a massive blind spot. How we all cared so much about a survival story lasting 43 days, while totally overlooking tens of thousands of years of survival in that very same landscape.
Stories like Merridoo's, only told around campfires among the handful of old people who remember what it was like to live in another world.
Vanessa Mills: He'd gone on a journey that had everyone talking, all amazed at the distance he'd been walking.
The media went mad, saying the American was liable for taking just one bottle of water, a Mars bar and a Bible.
Erin Parke VO: And like a lot of Australian folklore, the story of Robert Bogucki's built on inaccuracies.
Robert Bogucki was never lost, as the headlines said. He knew where he was. He just didn't want to be found.
And he wasn't in no-man's land, he was on Ngungamarta and Mangala country. Just no-one bothered to find that out.
Vanessa Mills: It was a circus in the desert. You had to see the show. There were more reporters than searchers. It was scrum toe to toe.
Erin Parke VO: And the main thing I’ve taken from all of this?
It all links back to that moment when I was a teenager and came unexpectedly close to death.
That moment of panic triggered a lifelong urgency to connect with people, to love and feel loved, because - without meaning to sound too cheesy - our time alive is finite, and human connection is more important than anything else.
And it feels like, in different ways, the Great Sandy Desert showed Robert and Merridoo the same thing. The importance of human connection for survival.
Merridoo's family realising they were unlikely to survive the desert alone, without a network of humans to share food and water with when times were tough. And to grieve with, in times of great pain.
And for Robert, the weeks of silence and solitude leading to the aching realisation that he needed to be closer to people, to let them in, and love them.
But maybe we don’t all need a near-death experience in the wilderness to show us that. And maybe you shouldn’t have to go to a faraway place to feel found.
Vanessa Mills: And the moral of the story at the end of the day? You'll wind up skinny and hungry and the sand can get awful burn-y if you take on the great sandy desert in some wacky spiritual journey.
(laughter)
Erin Parke VO: I'm Erin Parke, host and producer. With a big thanks to our fabulous production team: sound designer and producer Grant Wolter, supervising producer Piia Wirsu, executive producer Edwina Farley. And Blythe Moore, who’s helped steered the ship from the beginning.
A personal thanks to Franque Batty, Vanessa Mills, Troy Hynam and Ben Martin for their much-needed advice and guidance.
And most of all, thank you to Janet North and Robert Bogucki for so generously sharing their lives and their stories with me
And to Merridoo Walbidi, his wife Aggie and the other trackers and families of the Bidyadanga community, who took me under their wing with such warmth and wisdom.
This podcast was recorded on Yawuru land.
Thank you so much for listening.