Thread: Lost in the bush

Nothing too bad/exciting...was hunting solo in a remote spot on Stewart Island/Rakiura. It can get very tight bush in places, and creeks don't always run to the sea. I was trying to head back to the hut. I'd been walking for a bit (I'd been distracted by watching a kiwi playing around by my feet) when I thought "hmmm, I'm not sure where the coastline is any more, and I have no bearings". The forest was very thick with a closed canopy and I couldn't get any GPS signal through it. It was cloudy and I couldn't see the sun through the trees either. My pulse started quickening as I realised I was bushed. I sat down, took a breather and tried to keep calm. My watch has a compass so I slowly used that, with the topomap on my phone, to figure out roughly where I was. Turns out I had been going in totally the wrong direction for the past half hour. It wouldn't have been a total disaster, as I was on a peninsula and would've found the coast eventually, but it was enough of a fright to focus the senses!