A kayaker who went missing on the Murray River has been found alive and well after spending a frosty night by a rail bridge.
Authorities were alerted on Saturday night after a 53-year-old Wodonga man failed to reach his destination, having set off from the Hume Dam to paddle downstream to Albury.
The man lost his phone after his kayak flipped, and as temperatures dropped to around 8C he spent the night under a rail bridge after righting the vessel.
“So that was the biggest issue, we didn’t have contact,” Volunteer Rescue Association (VRA) NSW squad captain Paul Marshall told AAP.
“But he did have a change of clothes.”
As NSW emergency services and Victoria Police combed the Murray River on Saturday night, their thermal cameras were unable to detect the man at the bridge.
‘Quite treacherous’
“Obviously they’re using infrared looking for heat and because he’s at the bridge, the bridge itself is still warm and there’s cows and sheep in that area,” Mr Marshall said.
As a thick fog descended on the river and rescue boats repeatedly became grounded on sandbanks, search efforts were halted after midnight on Saturday.
“It was getting quite treacherous for our guys because it was shallow,” Mr Marshall said.
While preparing to continue the search on Sunday morning, a VRA NSW member spotted the missing man at a boat ramp at Noreuil Park in Albury.
“So he was a bit cold but, yeah, in good spirits,” Mr Marshall said.
“The ambulance came to check him out and he was in good health, and home to a wife that gave him a little bit of a blast because she was scared about obviously where he’d been (and) happily ever after, thankfully.”
Mr Marshall said the incident served as a reminder that despite being well prepared, things could still go wrong.
“The only thing he could have done a little bit better was locking in a destination,” he said.
“All the best laid plans, you can still get yourself in trouble.”
-AAP
