A SHAM OR NOT A SHAM

By now everyone in the English speaking world will have heard the name Jamie Neale.
In case you've been living under the proverbial rock, he's the 19 year old British backpacker who recently emerged after 12 days lost in the Australian bush in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

The SES, Police, and volunteers scoured the mountainous bush searching for him only to discover after the 12 days he walked into a fellow bushwalkers camp, for all intents and purposes unharmed.
Rejoice! As one could imagine. The would-be prodigal's father flew from England and joined the search, going as far as scratching his son's name on some rocks in an area his boy was assumed to have been.
The media, like vultures, leapt at the story, quoting words like miraculous, amazing, astounding - and currently is in its final throes. Lost walker found; congrats all round, slaps on back; media interest and offers for exclusive.

The TV images of the boy, I'd have to say were of a...well, normal boy with red nostrils. Thin, but not gaunt; pale, but not in any fashion emaciated. Wide-eyed, and a bit reserved but not traumatized into speechlessness.
In short, arguably not what one would expect from starving for 12 days and having to resort to eating berries.

Frankly I hadn't much more interest in this tale than I had in the recent bombings. But as the media had it shoved down my throat with its half-hourly reports, I found myself unable to not ruminate over the reported story and its facts.

One of which is the recent emergence of a certain 200,000 dollars offered by 60 Minutes for the exclusive. Which the chap took, with the assurance to give "most" of it to the volunteers. (The initial reported offer, one day after, was 60,000, all of which apparently was going to the 'teers).
The same day another report surfaced regarding the lad's competing in an eating contest which saw him down four large pizzas in an hour, the night before he set off on his hike. That's a significant amount of fuel, I mean, four large pizzas. That could effectively last a body between 5 days and a week. Yes, one would feel hunger, but there would still be plenty of "fuel" to run the engine for that approximate length of time. The following 5 days could be accounted for with, say 3-5 days worth of chocolate bars. After the gluttony, 1 bar per 24 hours would suffice - for, though admittedly not indefinitely, a period of 5-7 days at least.
Also, water is plentiful in the mountains.

That's it - that's all would be required. Then after the requisite amount of time, in this case 12 days, you just walk into a camp, look exhausted and let the rescuers do their thing.

So gorge yourself before leaving, bring along several bars of high energy food (chocolate, it has to be chocolate) and off you go. That's how I'd do it. Then hang out in the bush for a while conserving your energy, snacking on the chocolate, drinking stream water.
Wait til you've had enough and look appropriately grubby, the saunter into a bush walker's camp.
Couple of nights in the hospital, statement for the media, story offer.
Kerching!