In a story that seems plucked from adventure fiction, a young backpacker who disappeared on a remote Indonesian island nearly five decades ago has been found alive and well. Ingrid LeFebour's mysterious vanishing in 1976 became a central, haunting part of the legend surrounding the discovery of the legendary surf break at Nias.
The Disappearance That Shaped a Surfing Legend
The extraordinary tale came to light unexpectedly at a film screening in Fremantle, Western Australia, in December. The documentary, titled Point of Change, chronicles the arrival of Australian surfers on the island of Nias in the 1970s and the profound impact it had on the local community. The film prominently featured the story of Ingrid LeFebour, an 18-year-old from Perth who travelled there with her then-boyfriend and subsequently vanished.
To the astonishment of the audience and filmmakers, LeFebour herself was present at the premiere. "It was a bit bizarre, actually, when I found out," LeFebour recalls. "All of a sudden there's people calling me; it was a bit overwhelming." After the screening, attendees approached her for photographs, hailing her as a legend—a status she was entirely unaware she held.
A Journey to Lagundri Bay and a Fight for Survival
The story begins in 1976, when LeFebour and her boyfriend Stuart journeyed from Perth to Nias, Indonesia, seeking the newly surfed Lagundri Bay. They joined a small camp of Australian surfers, including Kevin Lovett, who had first ridden the wave a year earlier. After Stuart departed following disagreements, LeFebour remained. Soon, malaria swept through the camp.
As the illness took hold, the decision was made to evacuate to Bali for proper medical care. LeFebour, however, was too sick to travel with the group. The last image her companions had of her was being carried away from the village on a stretcher atop a truck. For years afterwards, her fate remained a mystery. When Lovett returned to Nias in the 1990s, he heard grim local rumours suggesting she had been killed by headhunters, with her head buried in a bridge's foundations.
Director Rebecca Coley first heard this story while researching her film in the early 2000s. For years, she attempted to find LeFebour, contacting missing persons agencies and scouring the internet, but without knowing her last name, the search proved futile. "I couldn't believe it when it actually happened and she had her own amazing version of events," Coley said.
Waking in the Morgue: The Truth Revealed
LeFebour's own account reveals a staggering fight for survival. Severely ill and delirious, she was taken to a local clinic. With a fever so high that staff believed she would not last the night, she was placed on a concrete slab in the morgue, covered with a sheet.
"I woke up on a concrete slab, covered in a sheet," LeFebour explains. Weak and disoriented, she toppled off the slab, wrapped the sheet around herself, and crawled out to find help. "I didn't know where I was, what had happened or where the rest of them were."
Her recovery was slow and arduous. She traded a gold cigarette case for passage on a ferry to Medan in Sumatra. "I remember when they put me on the ferry, I was lying down. I couldn't even sit up and it was a very rough crossing," she says. Eventually, she made her way back to Perth, where she suffered recurring bouts of malaria before finally receiving successful treatment at Royal Perth Hospital.
The ordeal did not deter her spirit for adventure. She later hitchhiked solo around Australia and continued to live an intrepid life. For LeFebour, the traumatic events on Nias were simply a chapter in her journey. "This got me thinking about a lot of my adventures," she reflects. "I mean, you just move on with your life."
The premiere of Point of Change finally connected the threads of a story that had been shrouded in mystery for almost fifty years, revealing not a tragedy, but a remarkable testament to human resilience.
