Crikey …
Rodney William Ansell was born on Oct. 1, 1954, in Murgon, Queensland, to Eva May and George William Ansell. He was the third of their four kids. At age 15, the family moved to the Northern Territory, where Rod lived a rugged life. As a young man, he made his living hunting feral water buffalo and selling the meat.
In May 1977, at the age of 22, Rod had just finished a sizeable buffalo catching job in Kununurra, Western Australia, and decided to treat himself to a protracted solo fishing trip. He told his girlfriend he would be gone for a few months and then struck out onboard his big motor launch. Deep down the Victoria River, he struck something sizeable, and his boat capsized. Ansell later claimed it was a whale. In short order, Rod Ansell found himself in the middle of no place in a tiny dinghy. He had salvaged a single oar, his hunting rifle, a knife, a bedroll, a little canned food, and his two twin 8-week-old bull terriers, one of which had a broken leg. He was 120 miles from the nearest human.
Unable to control his little boat, Ansell eventually floated out to sea. By paddling furiously for the next two days, he made landfall on a tiny island at the mouth of the Fitzmaurice River. By this point, he was getting pretty thirsty.
After a diligent search, Ansell found a source of fresh water above the tidal range. From there, he set up camp and began hunting feral cattle and buffalo to keep him and his dogs alive. At one point, he followed bees back to their hive and scored some honey. Ansell and his dogs slept in trees to avoid hungry crocodiles. One particular evening, while up in a tree, he got mixed up with a venomous brown tree snake. While hunting for subsistence, he killed a 16-foot crocodile — the head of which he retained as a trophy.
Realizing he would never be rescued, Ansell resolved to walk out of the bush. He eventually encountered a pair of aboriginal stockmen along with their cattle manager, a man named Luke McCall. Though a bit thin, Ansell was none the worse for the wear. He had survived alone in the wild for 56 days.
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