Medical student Hadi Nazari went missing on Boxing Day after he wandered off to take photos during a hike with his friends in Kosciuszko National Park in the Snowy Mountains region.

Hundreds of people, including Mr Nazari’s friends and family, joined search efforts to locate the 23-year-old.

He was found by other hikers around 15:15 local time (04:15 GMT) on Wednesday.

Mr Nazari had called out to the hikers and “told them that he’d been lost in the bush and was thirsty”, Superintendent Andrew Spliet told reporters.

After the hikers contacted emergency services, Mr Nazari was winched over to the search command post by a helicopter. He was assessed by paramedics at the scene and conveyed to a hospital.

Mr Spliet said that Mr Nazari was found in good health – alert, able to speak and had no significant injuries.

The two muesli bars, which Mr Nazari had found in a hut in the mountains, was “pretty much all that he’s had to consume over the last two weeks”, said Mr Spliet, adding that the hiker had also found water from creeks and foraged for berries.

Mr Nazari’s family, who were seen hugging him at the search base camp on Wednesday, later confirmed to local media that he was fine. “It is the happiest day of our lives,” they told 9News.

Mr Nazari was found near Blue Lake, around 10km (6 miles) away from the campground where he was supposed to meet his friends on 26 December.

“He’s covered a lot of ground in that time,” said Spliet, adding that police would “catch up with him” after he is checked out of hospital.