Brit backpacker denies 12-day ordeal while lost in Australian bush was hoax

London, July 20 (ANI): Brit teenager Jamie Neale insists that the 12-day ordeal he went through after he was lost in the Australian bush is not a hoax.

Neale, 19, has had to come to his own defence after experts cast doubts on his ability to survive sub-zero winter nights in the rugged Blue Mountains near Sydney without food or water.

"I'm a total idiot - but I'm not lying," the Sun quoted him as saying.

"You wouldn't hoax something like this. People can say what they like but I was genuinely lost," Neale, from Muswell Hill, North London, said.

During his talk, he revealed that he survived on seeds and leaves and slept in makeshift shelters of tree bark, and he even wrote farewell letters to his family, as he believed he would not be found.

"I was thinking I might die on that mountain," he added. (ANI)