History suggested all was not lost

While Jess O’Connor and Dion Reynolds spent 19 days lost in the Kahurangi, another tramper survived 29 days in the harsh wilderness in the 80s.

O’Connor and Reynolds were found alive but hungry yesterday after setting out on a tramp in the Anatori Valley on May 9.

Forty years ago a 21-year-old apprentice gardener survived for nearly a month in the wilderness in Kahurangi National Park – roughly 20km away from where O’Connor and Reynolds were last seen (as the crow flies).

In January 1980, Peter Le Fleming had walked the 82-kilometre Heaphy Track from Golden Bay through to Kohaihai on the West Coast in four days.

About three-quarters through the return leg though, something happened to cause Le Fleming to become disoriented and hopelessly lost off the main track. The last people to see Le

Fleming on the track were a trio of Canadian trampers at the Perry Saddle Hut on January 19.

It is believed soon after this he somehow stumbled and took a serious fall, banging his head in the process. The exact details remain a mystery because he could never recall them; ‘‘I just remember walking in a fog,’ he said later.

Now semi-retired from his job as a gardener in Palmerston North, Le Fleming said he had memories from before the accident and a few from during his recovery, but virtually nothing of his 29-day struggle for survival.

He recalled the weather in Kahurangi National Park had been cold and wet the whole season.

‘‘One minute it was fine, and the next you’re walking in a foot of water.’’

Following the fall, Le Fleming ended up at Shakespeare Flat on the Upper Aorere River, where he set up camp for the next five days.

During that time he gathered stones to build a ‘HELP’ sign in metre-high letters, and a double arrow formed out of ponga logs – confusingly pointing both upstream and downstream.

Breaking camp on February 1, he crossed the Aorere River and headed upstream and further into the interior. The alert was raised the same day with Le Fleming not arriving home on his scheduled flight to Palmerston North, and a police search and rescue operation began.

On February 18, the very last day of the search, Le Fleming was finally found. Flying in a Hughes 500 chopper on the way to the planned search area, Le Fleming’s discarded tent was spotted from the air, said search organiser Constable Tony Cunningham.

When the ground teams reached him, Le Fleming was emaciated, his weight dropping from 70kg to just 45kg. Le Fleming was discharged from hospital in just five days. He said he suffered no long-term effects from his ordeal.