Three-day nightmare of tourist lost in an Australian rainforest

Miss Saunders, 19, yesterday described her remarkable escape after becoming lost in a rainforest and told how she had survived on a packet of chewing gum before taking the initiative and following a mountain stream to safety.

She had become disorientated while on a walk on Mount Tyson in Queensland on Tuesday and failed to return to her friends in the nearby town of Tully.

As helicopter crews - equipped with heat-seeking sensors - and aboriginal trackers searched the area, she spent three days and nights alone trying to find her way back to safety. She finally stumbled back into an inhabited area after following a small stream down the mountainside.

Police in Australia described her escape as "almost impossible" and praised the initiative shown by Miss Saunders in finding her own way out of the forest.

However, officers did say she had been foolish to walk up the mountain alone, dressed in only a T-shirt and shorts and carrying just a banana and some chewing gum by way of supplies.

The teenager, who is short-sighted, had also gone ahead with the trip despite breaking her glasses. The three-day search and rescue effort cost at least 100,000.

Miss Saunders apologised for the trouble she had caused the emergency services, and the worry to her family back home in Worcestershire, as she recovered from her ordeal yesterday.

Her only injuries were a few cuts and bruises to her legs caused by forcing a path through the thick vegetation.

She set out to walk a marked mountain trail up Mount Tyson on Tuesday morning and told her friend, Jo Woodward, 22, that she would be back in Tully, the town where they were staying, by afternoon.

The friends had travelled to Australia in June as part of a gap year, intending to spend Christmas and New Year in Sydney before they were due to return to Kidderminster College where Miss Saunders is studying beauty therapy.

She reached the top of Mount Tyson but lost her way on the trail that led back from the 2,165-foot summit down to Tully. Miss Saunders called her friend on her mobile phone to say she was lost, but her battery ran out .

Within an hour she ate the banana which was the only food she had brought and was left with just a packet of sugar-free gum. She also wrote a message to her 18-year-old Australian boyfriend, Steven Wong, on a tree in red felt pen as she prepared to spend her first night in the wild.

"The nights were absolutely freezing and I slept on rocks, covering myself with leaves to keep warm," she recalled yesterday. "It was really, really cold. I could see eyes in trees and I kept hearing noises and thinking, ‘Oh, my God’.

"I didn’t really sleep. I kept waking. It seemed like I slept for ten minutes at a time. It was just so cold."

To combat the falling temperatures overnight, she pulled her T-shirt over her knees in a bid to keep warm.

The following morning, a search was launched involving helicopters, trackers and 70 volunteers, including her boyfriend, Mr Wong, and Miss Woodward. Miss Saunders heard the sound of the helicopter search crews flying over the forest canopy but was unable to attract their attention.

"I could hear traffic noise, but was totally disorientated and thought, ‘how close am I?’" she said.

She decided to stay in one place during Wednesday, in a clearing at the top of a waterfall, and wait for a helicopter to pass overheard but when that failed, she chose to find her own way out.

"I thought, ‘This is it’. The helicopter had been searching for three days, I thought if I don’t get out, I never will," she said.

"I followed a creek but seemed to be going around in circles. I knew that if I had not got out I might never have made it.

"I thought I would never speak to anyone again. I am just so happy to be out of there."

Following the course of a small stream, and pausing periodically to drink the water, she made her way down the mountainside and stumbled across a municipal rubbish dump at the edge of Tully early yesterday morning.

Police took her to hospital for routine checks but she had suffered no serious injuries. "I’m always going to thank chewing gum for my survival," she added. "It was an experience and an adventure, but I would never want to go through it again."

Miss Saunders said she had constantly worried about the effect her disappearance would be having on her mother back home in the UK. "I hope I haven’t given her a nervous breakdown and I feel sorry for causing all this."

Sergeant Kim McCoomb of Queensland Police praised the resourcefulness shown by Miss Saunders. "We’re amazed at her tenacity and very thrilled she’s safe and well. Being as lost as she was, it would have been almost impossible to escape. She was very smart at finding that creek and following it downstream. The terrain is very inhospitable. It’s a very horrible place to be, especially spending three nights up there."

Her mother, Liz Saunders, said: "It’s been the worst time of my life but somehow I knew they would find her safe and well.

"We’ve spoken to her. She’s got sore feet and scratches. "

Miss Saunders had celebrated her birthday in August in Australia and saved money to travel to Sydney with her friends for Christmas. She has a brother, James, 20, and sister, Holly, 15, who were waiting anxiously in Kidderminster with her mother for news.

On Thursday, aboriginal trackers found the remains of the banana eaten by Miss Saunders and also the message she wrote on the tree but were unable to pick up her trail.

It is common for walkers to lose their way walking down Mount Tyson but usually they remain in the wilderness for a single night at the most before finding their way back.

Australian police were becoming increasingly concerned at Miss Saunders’s disappearance, mindful of the fact that it came at a time when the case of the missing British backpacker, Peter Falconio, remains in the headlines.

One local hostel owner said: "It is about two-and-a-half hours to walk up the mountain and there is a good view at the top, but it is easy to veer off the track on the way down and get lost."

Relatives of Miss Saunders are flying out to Australia soon, but she does not plan to cut short her year-long travels and return to Britain.

"She won’t let this stop her," her mother said.