THE importance of phoning home has been drummed into one young backpacker after an international campaign was launched to trace his whereabouts after he was feared missing.

The family of 23-year-old Darren Pearson, from Thimbleby, near Northallerton, became deeply concerned for his safety when he failed to contact them for three months during a backpacking trip to Australia.

None of Mr Pearson's family or friends had heard anything from him by phone, e-mail or letter since January, and his mobile phone was not responding to the frantic phone calls from home.

In desperation his family contacted local media and the Foreign Office, which planned a poster campaign and arranged for pictures of Mr Pearson to be shown on Australian television.

The family's ordeal came to an end after a friend who had seen Mr Pearson learned of the publicity and managed to contact him.

His mother Irene said she was stunned and relieved to receive a call from her son.

"I was just astounded when the call came through," said Mrs Pearson. "It came on the day we were about to start the poster campaign and were talking to the Foreign Office too. It was just unbelievable."

Mr Pearson explained that he had broken his mobile phone in the outback and had no other way of contacting home.

"He said he had since moved to Melbourne to work for a friend he had met travelling.

"He kept saying he was so, so sorry for everything he had put us through," said Mrs Pearson. "He admitted he had been lax. I told him I couldn't describe how bad it was to hear nothing. This wasn't like him at all.

"Now every time we speak we make arrangements for the next call. When he gets home he's going to get a good kick in the pants, I can tell you."