Green Sea: John Summers tells the stories of those who get lost in New Zealand's bush

Have you ever wondered what it would be like getting lost in the bush? 

The confusion, disorientation, panic, and shame? 

Kiwi author John Summers has spent years pondering it, and his latest book, 'Green Sea: Lost in the New Zealand Bush', explores that very subject. 

Summers told Jack Tame the concept for the book was sparked a decade ago, by a paragraph he'd read about a man who was given an award for search and rescue. 

"He was involved in looking for people who very sadly had died in the bush," he explained.  

"He was part of these official searches, and then these searches were called off – they hadn't managed to find them. And yet he went back by himself, and he was given this award because he had managed to find two of these people." 

One person, Summers continued, had been found on Christmas Day. 

"I was really struck by that, and it kind of sparked what you mentioned, that thought of the bushes, this place that quite a frightening, can be quite a frightening place. What would it be like to be alone out there, to be lost out there?" 

So after carrying around these questions, Summers tracked down the man from the story to find what it was all about. 

"I talked to him and I wrote about it, but really, I still had a lot of questions, and I just keep going and going until here we are now talking about this book." 

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