Elderly Australians lead police on merry hunt

An elderly Australian couple evaded police on a 2,300 km (1,400 mile) journey by car and bus after setting off in protest when the wife was denied an extension of her driving licence because of old age.

Tom and Marian Foulkes, both in their 80s, drove from their Melbourne home in the southern state of Victoria to the north of New South Wales state and halfway back again, avoiding police searching for them.

At one stage, the couple had their car keys confiscated by a police officer who thought they were disoriented, but they hit the road again, this time in a bus.

Their two weeks on the run ended on Wednesday when they were found holed up in a hotel in the Australian capital Canberra.

Paul Foulkes, who reported his parents missing, said they were afraid of losing their independence as his father had earlier lost his driving licence.

"They wished to demonstrate that they are capable people and they can manage themselves and they can drive," Foulkes told Reuters on Thursday. "The desire to be independent, to go off, it's the human spirit isn't it, to want to travel especially when there are excessive restrictions put on them."

Foulkes said his parents, married for 38 years and both with varying degrees of dementia, enjoyed their escapade.

"They said they had had a good time, they described it as a holiday, they weren't very happy to have been caught at all, they wanted to keep going," he said.

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