Lost British backpacker Jamie Neale has made big headlines in Australia in recent days and now it appears he has made an even bigger pay day:
BRITISH backpacker Jamie Neale has returned to the bush in the NSW Blue Mountains to tell a TV crew how his bushwalk went so horribly wrong.
The 19-year-old was lost for 12 days in enduring sub-zero temperatures, living off seeds and weeds and keeping warm under strips of bark.
He wandered off a walking track during a planned day hike on July 3 and lost hope of ever getting out of the rugged terrain before emerging on Wednesday.
Mr Neale was taken back into bushland on Saturday by Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes, which paid $200,000 for his story.
The teenager left hospital on Friday and is set to travel to Perth to visit relatives.
His father, Richard Cass, left Sydney on Saturday to return home after the extensive search for his son.
Before boarding his flight he again defended his son’s honesty as doubters in Australia and the UK continue to question how the backpacker survived in the cold without food. [AAP]
Whether or not him being lost in the woods for 12 days is a hoax or not is currently a big topic of debate:
But Mr Cass, 54, said: ‘When I told him about the hoax claims he was pretty angry about that.
‘He’s aware that people are disbelieving. But I know my boy and I know he’s been out there for that period of time.
‘He’s been through a God awful experience and for him to then not be believed, that will obviously be quite psychologically damaging.’
Callers to Sydney radio stations have asked why Mr Neale did not hear the search parties who were looking for him in the area he was lost in, roughly between a rocky outcrop known as the Ruined Castle and Mt Solitary.
They also asked why he did not stay in a clearing while a search helicopter was scouring the landscape.
Other doubters have said it seemed an amazing coincidence that on the very day his father, who had flown out to Australia from his home in Watford, was due to fly back to England, Mr Neale should have stumbled upon two bushwalkers who had set up camp and word went out that he had been found. [Daily Mail]
Like this park ranger I am eager as well to hear what he was eating:
Park ranger Geoff Luscomb described Mr Neale’s survival as ‘remarkable’ and said he wanted to learn more about the ‘bush tucker’ he had eaten.
Mr Neale has told his father he lived on seeds and a rocket-like grass, but Mr Luscombe said he could not be sure what the backpacker meant by his description of that grass.
‘I’m just very keen to hear all about that – how, being an Englishman with no previous knowledge of survival in the Australian bush, he managed to stay out there for 12 days eating these foods that I would like to know more about.
‘I’m not doubting his story, because it really is a remarkable story, but I am very keen to hear in detail how he managed it,’ said Mr Luscombe. [Daily Mail]
I guess the truth will probably come out in due time, but for someone who ate nothing, grass and seeds for 12 days in freezing temperatures he looks remarkably well.
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