Sun may be misleading northern hemisphere tramper

Missing English tourist Robert Atkin may be disorientated because he is used to tramping in the northern hemisphere.

David Park, who has been running the Kauaeranga Valley Christian Camp in the area for several years, said the tramper from the northern hemisphere may be using the sun to get a wrong steer as he tried to find his way out of some of the most inhospitable bush areas on the Coromandel.

He said "everything may be backwards to him" because he was used to tramping in the northern hemisphere and not the southern hemisphere and he may be heading in the wrong direction.

Searchers headed out for the sixth day looking for Mr Atkin, 26, today as fears for his safety grow.

He left on a relatively easy and short tramp in the Kauaeranga Valley near Thames on Wednesday but failed to return.

He was lightly equipped for a day tramp and although relatively experienced as a tramper in England, was not experienced in New Zealand bush.

Mr Atkin's parents were reported to be planning to come to New Zealand from England as the search entered its sixth day.

Search controller Steve Hayman said yesterday the bush area where he disappeared was "absolutely horrendous" but Mr Park said if Mr Atkin was walking on Billy Goat Track, it was a well-defined path provided trampers kept to the track.

"It is a very well marked out track. He would really have to have gone out of his way to have got lost."

He said the track was built when the area was heavily logged for kauri logs at the beginning of last century.

Once off the track it was heavy and hard country to search, particularly if the search teams did not know where he would have left the track.

He said the weather had been "pretty good" lately and Mr Atkin would have had plenty of water.

He said the natural inclination would be to find a river or creek and follow it out.

However, he said if he was following the sun he may be applying a northern hemisphere approach and heading in the wrong direction.

He said once in a bush a person could become "completely disorientated. You haven't got a clue where you are unless you know the area a little bit or can find a bearing."

He said without knowing the area there was very little to take a bearing from apart from some power lines.

"But you have got to know where they are. You can't get a bearing from anything. There are always just more hills."

He said Mr Atkins would be thinking he was "in deep trouble."

NZPA