The Blue Mountains, 50 miles west of Sydney, comprise one of the most spectacular landscapes in Australia and are a major tourist draw. But their beauty is dangerously deceptive.

The 2.5 million acres of wilderness appear from a distance as a vast, benign canopy of eucalyptus trees, sending their signature blue haze into the atmosphere.

But the region is criss-crossed by ravines and gorges up to to 760 metres deep, with steep, sudden drops of 100 metres. The forests reach 50 metres high, making it almost impossible for anyone lost within to find their way out easily.

The terrain is so forbidding that the early European settlers considered the mountains impassable. They were thought to be such an insurmountable barrier to the interior of New South Wales that a jail was built there for political prisoners.

Today millions of tourists visit every month, some to gaze on the spectacular Three Sisters rock formation near Katoomba and others to hike the thousands of trails in the seven national parks that make up the World Heritage site.

Although the trails are inviting, it is all too easy for a hiker to mistake a wombat or a kangaroo trail for the designated path, and once someone has left the beaten track it is just one step to becoming fatally disoriented.

With steep slopes reaching hundreds of metres down to the valleys and hidden ravines everywhere, one slip can mean a broken leg or worse.

Three members of the huge rescue team that searched the Blue Mountains for Jamie Neale had to be airlifted out after sustaining injuries. In 2006, David Iredale, a teenager from Sydney, died after becoming lost on a three-day hike on the Mt Solitary track, near where Mr Neale was walking.

"Danger is everywhere," Tim Tranter, survival expert and former president of the Blue Mountains Board of Tourism, told The Times.

Sergeant Ian Colless, who led the rescue effort, said: "The whole area is very steep and bushy. You only have to walk for a few hundred metres and your legs are cut up. It's dangerous walking down the slopes and hard walking up and any mishap can lead to serious injury."

It is, however, possible to survive for up to three weeks in the Blue Mountains, even in the heat of summer. There is plenty of water in thousands of streams and there are thousands of caves for shelter.

Termites and tree ferns: the bush tucker guide

Any search for food in the Blue Mountains is fraught with hazards.

Experts advise is that it is better to go hungry than to risk being poisoned; of the thousands of species of plants that grow there, only a fraction are edible.

"You're in an area loaded with good food but the problem is knowing what is edible and what isn't," Mr Tranter said. "My advice is don't risk it. Go hungry — it's safer."

Of the 22,000 fungi that grow here, only a handful are edible. But there are plants which can be eaten safely: the geebung, a small green and pink berry, tastes of banana and walnut and is found throughout the year.

Banksia plants provide glucose in their nectar, as do wattle and mimosa.

Tree ferns that have a distinctive "fiddle head" — curly fronds that look like a violin — are edible, as is the carrot top bush, named both for its look and the carrot-like taste of its leaves.

The roots of native irises, found all over the Blue Mountains, offer carbohydrate.

Termites — if you are not squeamish and can find enough of them — provide protein, as do ants, but avoid bull ants as they are poisonous.

There are hundreds of goanna lizards and kangaroos but the energy expended tyring to hunt these down would not be made up for by the meal you would get at the end of the hunt.

If you are desperate for warmth you could always burrow your way into the centre of a termite mound, which is up to 36C at its heart, but you would have to share your accommodation with millions of insects.

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