A Lost Australian Backpacker On a Spirit Quest Has Been Found Alive

One day, you're just another millennial with a travel blog on a journey to discover yourself in the Malaysian wilderness. The next, you're hopelessly lost in the jungle with only leeches for company. So was the story for 25-year-old Tasmanian backpacker Andrew Gaskell, who went missing two weeks ago in a remote part of Mulu national park in Borneo. Happily, the lost hiker was rescued by local authorities on Tuesday.

Gaskell, who was trekking by himself through a terrain full of limestone caves and gorges, was found alive and well—albeit covered in leeches and maggots, and close to starvation. He reportedly survived by eating wild ferns for sustenance. The traveller had been declared missing in mid-October after failing to make contact with family and friends , who then travelled to Malaysia to help take part in the rescue mission.

As his extensive blog details, Gaskell is an engineering graduate who decided to leave it all behind and travel indefinitely in Asia, hoping to "come to some sort of conclusion as to who I am."

He explains how he has become disillusioned with the world of civil engineering and society at large. "Many people talk a lot, yet say very little," he sagely observes. "Everybody is crazy. It's just that many people are too afraid to flaunt their true character. For far too long I have supressed my insanity in order to conform to social expectations and futile self-consciousness."

Gaskell's first post before embarking on the Malaysian trip—titled "Confessions of an Imminent Traveller—will be familiar to just about any young, white person who believes their backpacking stint will be different to that of the millions of others who have preceded them.

"My main travel goals are to have genuine cultural experiences with local people outside of the mainstream tourist attractions; and to climb a lot of mountains. And maybe, just maybe, in the course of my travels I'll come to some sort of conclusion as to who I am and what I want to do with my life. And so begins my journey beyond the horizon," Gaskell wrote in early August.

"I have a nagging curiosity of the different cultures around the world. Are people who live in less wealthy countries any worse off internally? Perhaps people from poorer communities are happier than materialistically abundant western societies? I look forward to observing how communities and families interact in a variety of cultures across the globe."

Not all those who wander are lost, until they are in fact actually lost, and have to rely on an international rescue mission to save them. For better or worse though, Gaskell's close call hasn't dissuaded him from continuing his spirit quest—the backpacker is reportedly keen to continue his intrepid travels upon recovering in a local hospital.

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