It is good news that Jamie Neale has been found safe and relatively well after wandering off into the never-never in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, but what a typical thing for a British backpacker to do. Do these people leave their common sense at home for gods sake when they visit Australia…?

The Aussie bush is still a very volatile environment – if it had been summer he would have met with snakes and venomous spiders, but it was well into winter and Jamie could have frozen to death. I don’t know how often these people are told that before wandering off they should inform others of where they intend to go – take a mobile phone and water as well. So what this guy was up to just boggles the mind.

He is very lucky indeed – only the native aborigines can go walkabout and not get into such a mess, maybe we should ask them to patrol the Blue Mountains and stop these ‘silly white buggars’ from causing so much trouble and expense when they get themselves lost