A Briton lost for two days in the Australian bush after wandering away from his camp alerted rescuers by scrawling an SOS message in the sand.
Geoff Keys, 63, lost his bearings in the Jardine National Park in northern Queensland after taking a shortcut that he later described as “one of the stupidest decisions ever”.
He is far from being the only tourist to lose his way after straying off the beaten track, but the consequences of his actions were more serious than most. Wearing a hat, swimming trunks, shorts and a T-shirt with no shoes nor food, he spent two days desperately trying to retrace his way as his strength ebbed.
He was spotted by a rescue helicopter searching for him after he scrawled “Help” in the sand.
Mr Keys, from Dartford, Kent, ended up more than eight miles from his camp after swimming along Canal Creek to Eliot Falls. Recalling his traumatic adventure in a blog, he wrote: “Instead of turning round and swimming back upstream I decided to take to the bush and cut across to the track. It was nearly dark.
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“I had no shoes. What was I thinking of? I was convinced the track was near by and walking back would have been easier than swimming.
“So I took a bearing off the setting sun and the rising moon and headed north, back the way I’d come. It took me about two hours to realise it wasn’t the same creek. I kept swimming — it seemed the sensible thing to do.”
Mr Keys eventually wrote a message that read “HELP 2807”, to signify the date, along with an arrow pointing downstream towards his location in the hope that a helicopter might spot it.
He added: “It seemed a good idea to help myself as much as possible so I got out of the water, found a stick and wrote a message in the sand, just in case the helicopter came down that way.
“I thought this would be enough to get any helicopter that saw it looking in the right place.”
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His friends reported him missing and it was not until the early hours that he heard a helicopter coming down the river while he was resting after an hour-long swim.
He successfully caught its attention by waving his hat and “jumping up and down like a lunatic”, and was transported to safety.
Mr Keys, who is separated with three grown-up children, said: “I feel stupid but lucky. I’m sorry about the worry caused to friends and family.”
However, the experience has not dented his adventurous nature. He is now on a motorbike journey around the world, to add to previous travels across Europe, Russia, China, Japan and New Zealand.
He also plans to travel to the Middle East, Africa and America.