Desperate search for missing backpacker in Australia as cops find chilling clue

Police are using aircraft to try and find a backpacker who is missing in the Australian Outback, with the many tracks found by her abandoned van making it easy to become disorientated.

The last known sighting of 26-year-old German backpacker Carolina Wilga was June 29 at a general store in the remote wheat farming town of Beacon, 200 miles northeast of the Western Australia state capital Perth. Her friends and family have not heard from her since. The discovery of her van on Thursday in wilderness in the Karroun Hill Nature Reserve, around 60 miles north of Beacon, had focused the search area, Western Australia Police Force Acting Insp Jessica Securo said.

"The search has resumed in that Karroun Hill area. It will be concentrating around her vehicle and tracks that offshoot that area," said Ms Securo. "Given the dense area, our aerial support is our best chance of finding her."

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The overnight temperature was 2.6C in the area with no rain. "The terrain is Outback country and there's large rocky outcrops. Although there's a number of tracks, you can see how it would be easy to become lost or disorientated in that area if you didn't know it well," Ms Securo said. Police believe Carolina got lost and is not the victim of crime.

Carolina's van, a 1995 Mitsubishi Delica Star Wagon, was 22 miles from any major tracks, Ms Securo said. The van, which has solar panels and reserves of drinking water, had recovery boards under its rear wheels that are used to give bogged vehicles traction.

Ms Securo couldn't say whether the van became bogged or broke down. "It appears that as she was driving, she's likely to have become lost and then the car has suffered mechanical issues," she said.

"It's hard to say how much she has taken" with her from the van, Ms Securo continued. "We do know that she was planning to travel throughout regional W.A. and do some exploring through there."

Western Australian Premier Roger Cook said "police are throwing a lot of resources" at the search. "They've moved swiftly now, and the search is ongoing and is resource-intensive. We want to bring Carolina home, and the police are doing everything they can," Mr Cook told reporters.

The reserve where Carolina is believed to be missing covers more than 300,000 hectares. She has been traveling in Australia for two years and working at Western Australian mine sites and her mother, Katja Will, who lives in the city of Castrop-Rauxel in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, has appealed for public help to find her daughter.

"Carolina is still sorely missed. If anyone has any information, please contact the police. Please keep your eyes open!!!," Will said on a post on an Western Australian Police Force social media site.