Ian Smith, a retired design draughtsman, sparked a search and rescue (SAR) operation involving a helicopter, two boats, a police dog team and 35 SAR volunteers called from the Catlins and Balclutha after leaving the track while trying to videotape the Catlins coastline.
Mr Smith started his trip at 10.30am on Monday, but found the track more overgrown than he had expected.
"I thought I'd shoot down [the track] and be back before lunchtime, but I started having falls, and got tangled in blackberry."
He had given his wife, Judith, the GPS co-ordinates before leaving for the Catlins, which helped police define the search area.
"I tell my wife that's where I'm going, and I stay in that area," he said.
"As soon as I heard the siren I thought, `Ah, Jude's rung up and they're on the job.
We're going to get found'."
SAR incident controller Constable Murray Hewitson, of Owaka, said Mrs Smith phoned police when her husband had not returned by 7pm on Monday.
"I contacted [the Cathedral Caves administrator] and gave her the car details.
"She popped up and said the car was still here," he said.
"It took an hour to call around the volunteers, and the search didn't start till 11pm."
Const Hewitson said it was pitch-black by then and there were several bluffs in the search area.
"We found one footprint.
"We checked the main route and both ends of the beach.
"At 1am, we brought the teams back in and the search was suspended at 2am, and started again at 6am."
A police dog team and a helicopter joined the search about noon yesterday.
Helicopters Otago pilot Greg Shirley and crewman Doug Flett started grid searches of the 800ha search area between the Chaslands Highway, down Pratt Rd to the Cathedral Caves, along the coast to the Tautuku peninsula and up the Tautuku River, while Senior Constable Peter Hanlin and his dog Edge, of the Dunedin police dog squad, picked up Mr Smith's scent.
The missing man was found at 3.15pm yesterday by Owaka SAR volunteer Steve "Humpy" Hurring, about 500m from the road on Flaxy Track, near the Cathedral Caves.
Mr Smith said he was not too worried about spending a night alone in the bush.
He made himself a bed out of ponga fronds, wrapped a towel around his body and pulled up his socks to keep warm, and said he was "actually quite comfortable".
"The only time I was a wee bit worried was when my water ran out."
Mr Smith said his muscles started cramping from dehydration.
The only food he had with him was a muesli bar.
He also found his GPS unit was not suited to the terrain he was trying to negotiate.
"The GPS was useless, telling me the distance [to the track] but not the direction.
"It's not much point in knowing how far it is to the next waypoint if you don't know which direction it is," he said.
"When I shouted today and somebody shouted back, that was the icing on the cake.
"Mind you, I had been shouting since yesterday," he said.
Mrs Smith said the incident had been "pretty hard" to deal with, and she would insist that Mr Smith carried a GPS unit containing a locator beacon next time he went into the bush.
