A tourist who went missing in the Australian outback was rescued after writing a desperate SOS message in the sand.

Geoff Keys, 63, from Dartford was lost in the 900 square mile Jardine National Park in Queensland without food for two days.

The retired AA mechanic ran into trouble after he went swimming to visit a waterfall and realised he could not find his way back to his camp.

He scrawled the message 'HELP 2807' followed by an arrow - indicating the date and his direction of travel.

Mr Keys, who had been on a round-the-world motorbike trip, said: "What went wrong was firstly I didn't find the waterfalls and as time went by and it started to get dark, instead of turning round and swimming back - which would have been the sensible thing - I cut across the bush to the track.

"Unfortunately I wasn't where I thought I was, so it didn't work."

"It seemed a good idea to help myself as much as possible so I got out of the water, found a stick and wrote a message in the sand, just in case the helicopter came down that way."

The message was spotted as police officers searched the area from the air.

Brad Foat, senior constable, told him: "Mate you’ve got a lot of worried people back home."

He was then plucked from the outback and taken to safety.

Mr Keys, who did not have on any footwear to protect his feet, added: "After eight hours walking in the bush, my feet were in quite bad condition. The rocks in the river were very rough as well, which cut my feet as I was swimming. But they had healed up in terms of I was able to walk after about four days or so.

"I feel stupid but lucky. I’m sorry about the worry caused to friends and family. Please believe me… I won't be doing it again."

However, the father-of-three said he would continue his travels to Asia, America and the Middle East.