SYDNEY, July 10, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Police issued a public appeal for help Thursday in their search for a 26-year-old German woman missing for over a week while backpacking in Western Australia.

Carolina Wilga was last seen on June 29 arriving in a Mitsubishi van at a general store in the small agricultural community of Beacon, population 123, which lies northeast of Perth.

"Carolina departed that area about five minutes later and has not been seen or heard from since," homicide squad detective senior sergeant Katharine Venn told reporters.

She had planned to travel through remote Western Australia and also go to the eastern coast, "so our search area is therefore vast", Venn said.

"At the moment this is a missing persons investigation," she added.

"There is no indication that there's any third party involvement in her disappearance, but our minds are open to any line of inquiry or any information that people bring forward to us."

Police released photos and video footage of Wilga.

She spent two years backpacking the country, and had been working at mine sites in Western Australia, they said.