The ultimate bush-tucker trial

Published on Wednesday 15 July 2009 22:00

WHO says that pommies can't survive in the outback? Jamie Neale, a 19-year-old from London on his gap year, has just survived 12 days in the dense bush of the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. Most folk lost in the bush don't last longer than three days, never mind nearly two weeks.

In fact, the Aussie authorities were on the verge of calling off the search.

Jamie showed his mettle by going out for a walk in the bush without the obligatory big knife or jungle hat. It appears he had also neglected to watch Crocodile Dundee before heading outdoors, because it does not seem to have occurred to him to find his direction using the sun (that's the big shiny thing that rises in the east and sets in the west). But at least Jamie showed that Brits, brought up on reality television, can survive by eating nettles.

Jamie's return was wonderful news for his parents, who had given up hope of ever seeing him again. His father, Richard Cass, had actually flown to Australia to join the search. Believing his son dead, he carved Jamie's name on a tree as a memorial. And the father's comment on hearing Jamie was alive? "He's the only teenager in the world who goes on a ten-mile hike and leaves his mobile phone behind."

What next for young Jamie? Can we predict a slot in I'm a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here?