On 29 March 2004 Rau arrived at the Hann River Roadhouse in North Queensland. She was hitchhiking and travelling alone. Since it was the wet season, and she did not have a consistent plan for travel, the locals were concerned for her safety. On 30 March, locals took her from the Roadhouse to the nearby town of Coen, on the Cape York Peninsula. She was taken to the Exchange Hotel in Coen, where locals called the Queensland Police. There Rau gave several versions of her story, identifying herself as Anna Brotmeyer and Anna Schmidt, and spoke both English and German. She said that she was a tourist from Munich, Germany, and that she was planning to continue north as far as Weipa. However, she could not provide any documentation and said there was no one else in Australia who would know she was missing.