A British teenager who survived 12 days lost in the Australian Bush had been given up for dead by his father, who was about to return to England after holding a service in memory of his son.

Richard Cass, who had flown out to Australia to join the search for Jamie Neale, 19, had told the boy’s mother: “Give up, he’s dead.” Rescue workers were preparing to call off the hunt when the teenager, from Muswell Hill, North London, appeared yesterday morning nine miles from the Blue Mountains tourist town of Katoomba.

He had survived the freezing temperatures by huddling under his jacket at night, eating berries and plants, and drinking from streams.

Mr Neale had set out for an “easy” day’s hike in the mountains west of Sydney on July 3. Dressed in trainers, a T-shirt and light jacket, he left a youth hostel in Katoomba planning to walk to the Ruined Castle rock formation. He took with him a small bottle of water and two bread rolls. He left his mobile phone in the hostel — “the only teenager in the world”, his father said, to go on a hike without his phone.

Mr Cass said yesterday that his son had lost hope after days of clambering up steep escarpments to wave frantically at search helicopters only to see them fly away again. “He would go up on a cliff and see where to go but as soon as he went back down he didn’t know where he was,” Mr Cass said, speaking outside the hospital in Katoomba where his son is being treated for exposure and dehydration.

“He was kind of losing faith in the idea that there was a God every time that helicopter flew over and he waved and shouted and nothing happened. He did think he was going to die, he was that scared.”

Mr Cass admitted that he had also given up hope for his son. “He’s come back from the dead. I’d held my own little closure ceremony in the park. I carved his name, lit a little candle. But I always said he was tough.”

The gap year teenager was last seen on top of Ruined Castle where he told a married couple that he intended to keep walking to Mount Solitary, a return trip of about ten hours. There was no other sighting of him until mid-morning yesterday when he walked out of the Bush at Narrow Neck track, six miles away from where he got lost, and told two bushwalkers who he was. He was physically and mentally drained, scratched and dehydrated, but otherwise remarkably well.

Mr Neale’s mother, Jean, told Sky News that she had spoken briefly with her son over the phone from the hospital. “He was just happy to hear my voice. We told him how much we had missed him and we loved him and he spoke to his brother. It was quite emotional. He sounded very tearful, very exhausted. I know he can’t wait to get home.”

Mr Cass flew from England to join a manhunt involving more than 60 rescue workers. He said that he had tried to keep the searchers motivated. “I thought there was still hope but as day after day went by they told me we had to consider that something terrible had happened.” Mr Cass typed out a letter about Jamie that was handed to each member of the search team. Carl Clark, police inspector, said: “It contained lots of information. It was really personal so that motivated us. It is an incredible story of survival.”

In the end his son was found by chance. “It is nothing short of remarkable that he lived after so long out there,” said Sergeant Ian Colless, of Katoomba police, who co-ordinated the rescue effort. “It is especially remarkable given how poorly equipped he was. Once you lose the track it can be very dangerous. You can’t just blaze your own trail in this area.”

Mr Cass described his delight when he received a text message from Katoomba police giving him the news as he was about to board a flight to London. “I heard the news and I gave a great shout, ‘My boy’s been found!’.”

His joy was mixed with fury at what the teenager had put his family through. “I’m going to kick his arse. The millions that have been spent on this search, the man hours and woman hours that have gone into it . . . all because he goes out on a walk without his mobile phone.”

Mr Cass said that, although father and son had enjoyed many hiking trips together, his son’s navigation was “not brilliant”. And it was “pure luck” that his son found food to eat that wasn’t poisonous.

One of Mr Neale’s former teachers said that it was not the first time that the teenager had slept in the open or had to find his way back to safety.

A few years ago the 19-year-old completed his Duke of Edinburgh award, returning to base camp after being left in Epping Forest, Essex. It was one of the the quickest times that his school had ever recorded. Keith Bennett, head of PE at Alexandra Park school, who led Mr Neale on his award, said: “When I heard that he was missing I was very concerned but there was a part of me that thought if anyone was going to cope in that environment, then it would be Jamie.”

It was not clear last night whether Mr Neale would continue his global adventure in Laos, Vietnam and Nepal, as he had originally planned.

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