This information is for friends and family of members of Sydney Bush Walkers (SBW).

Most SBW trips will not have a precise finish time. There are many reasons why participants on a trip can return later than expected, including:

• The terrain may be more challenging than expected (thick bush, route finding, river level higher than normal)
• A participant may be slow (due to fitness, being heat affected, a minor injury)
• The leader was ambitious in the ground they were expecting to cover

Improvements in modern technology have meant that if a trip has a genuine emergency (e.g. a broken leg) then they are able to get in contact with emergency services by:

• Mobile phone range – increased range means even some quite remote trips can get a signal on the top of mountains
• Sending a message using a satellite communicator device (Spot, Garmin InReach etc)
  
• Setting off a Personal Location Beacon (PLB)

If your loved one has not returned from an SBW trip in the timeframe you expect, please do not call Emergency Services.

As a general rule a party should be given 15 hours from the time they are due back before raising an alarm.

e.g. if a group was due back on Sunday evening, then we would wait until Monday morning around 9-10am before contacting Police. This gives a slow group who may have been forced to camp overnight time to walk out the next morning.