A group of German tourists were rescued after getting lost in Coromandel bush.
Four teenage German tourists had to spend a cold night huddled together in the dense Coromandel bush after they accidentally followed a possum track while on a day walk and got lost.
Malte Breucker, 18, and 19-year-olds Jon Lindau, Katharina Ulrich and Rica Stegmayer were found safe and well by search and rescue teams in a rugged area near a river about 1pm on Thursday, almost exactly 24 hours after they left Waiomu - wearing T-shirts, jeans and raincoats - for Te Puru.
The group had only been in New Zealand for about a month, Breucker said, and although they'd done some walks up north, before Wednesday it was their first time in the bush.
They had wanted to walk the Pinnacles but the track was closed.
Breucker said a Department of Conservation staff member at the information centre at the bottom of the Kauaeranga Valley had recommended the Waiomu-Te Puru track.
The tourists believed the situation would have been more dire if they hadn't had their cellphones with them because no one would've known where they were.
They got lost after becoming confused by the pink triangular signs used to mark possum trails - mistaking them for markers on a walking track.
"We were looking for a sign for Te Puru and found pink triangles and thought this would be the way to Te Puru. We followed the pink triangles and we had no clue where we were going," Breucker told the Herald.
They'd expected the walk to take a maximum of four hours and so about 5pm after zig-zagging through steep terrain littered with roots and downed trees they realised they were lost.
An example of the dense bush where the German tourists were lost.
"Our hope to reach Te Puru was shrinking," Breucker said.
They could hear a river and decided to walk towards it to re-orient themselves because they knew it would lead to the coast.
But as it got darker, panic started to set in.
About 7.30pm the teenagers found a partial clearing near a waterfall and stopped to rest there. There was cellphone coverage there and they called police to tell them they were lost and their approximate location.
"They sent us a message with a link. We clicked on that and then they could locate us. But also the struggle was we had low battery because we were walking the whole day," Breucker said.
The police sent out a search party but couldn't find them, he said.
They spent the night huddled together on rocks which they lined with leaves for warmth.
"We had luck with the weather. It was sunny in the day and it was dry through the night so that was good," Breucker said.
Fortunately, they had also packed enough water and snacks - apples, bananas, pretzels and crackers - to get them through the night.
The teenagers spent the night in the bush, near a waterfall. Photo / Supplied by Rica Stegmayer
In the morning the police contacted them to say they had sent searchers and told the tourists to stay put.
They were calm after knowing help was on the way, then Breucker's phone battery died - the device had been their only form of contact with the police - and it started raining heavily.
"We were a bit desperate because we were getting wetter and the trail was getting more difficult and we thought maybe they can't reach us because it was raining so heavily," Breucker said.
"The hope was shrinking and at that moment we had talked about what we would do if they can't get to us and what we would do if we had to stay another night."
After about four hours of waiting they heard voices and whistles on the other side of the river and knew they'd been found and felt "pure relief".
"We totally freaked out. We jumped up and whistled back."
The search and rescue team walked them out of the bush and the group spent the night at one of their rescuer's homes in Thames.
Rescuers arrive to help them out of the bush. Photo / Supplied by Rica Stegmayer
The tourists - Jon Lindau (centre left), Katharina Ulrich, Rica Stegmayer and Malte Breucker - with some of their rescuers. Photo / Supplied by Rica Stegmayer
Although the experience didn't put them off going into the bush in New Zealand, Breucker said next time the tourists would make sure they were better prepared and go over their planned route with a local tramper.
The lessons he learnt were to "always tell someone where you're going, always be prepared to stay one night, always wear hiking boots".
Clearer signage would also be helpful to stop tourists getting lost, Breucker said.
Trevor Butler, an operations manager with Tairua-Pauanui Land Search and Rescue, who managed the team of about 20 to 25 searchers who found Breucker, Lindau, Ulrich and Stegmayer, said it wasn't unusual for people to get lost in the area, but the situation could've turned nasty.
"They were very lucky and they did what we told them to do, which makes the search a whole lot easier when people stay put rather than continue to force themselves on into more lost situations. A moving target is always harder to find."
Sergeant Vince Ranger, of Waikato police search and rescue, said getting confused like Breucker and his friends was easy to do.
"We want to encourage people to use the bush and go for tramps and have that experience. But to do that within their capabilities and the capabilities of your equipment."
If people wanted to challenge themselves in the bush or were unsure they should go with someone more experienced, he said.
Ranger said a review of signage - including the pink triangles - wouldn't be necessary because experienced trampers knew what the signs meant.
Both Butler and Ranger said technology - particularly cellphones - was helpful in locating people lost in the bush.
