I became unaware of my position on the first of my two QXCs. I made the mistake of concentrating too much on trying to correlate landmarks with what was on the chart and not watching my heading. Ended up drifting off track and becoming disorientated. Such a horrible feeling. Kept my cool and back tracked to my last waypoint. Then continued and eventually got to my destination somewhat later than planned. I learned from my mistakes and did the second QXC the next day with no problems and then passed my GST two weeks later. Happy days! I learned a lot from that experience.

perfect lesson
 

sounds like a great lesson to me… the whole reason you do x-countries in training (and good to know you had no access to gps!)

We have all been lost at one time or other so don't worry about it

Infact in someways its good to get lost on purpose so you can get the old brain working in the right way to rectify the situation.

Remember even the best get lost or mistake one runway, one airport for another!
A RyanAir landed on a disused runway at the wrong airport mistaking it for LondonDerry

The airport was a disused military airfield next to Londonderry
All the PAX were taken off and bussed across to the right airport leaving a very Red faced Captain to sort the mess.

So its quite normal and expected to be uncertain of ones position

Pace

The single most embarrassing "Lost" situation I had was many years ago whilst undergoing a Navigational Flight Test to revalidate my PPL.

I was under examination by the Club CFI and whilst the first part of the examination route went reasonably well, I suffered significant brain fade after the first waypoint and became severely disorientated somewhere over Cheshire. I put in place the lost procedure and picked a ground feature about which to orbit whilst I got a fix. At the time I was working in the water industry and by chance had picked the water treatment works at which I had been working that very morning. Did it do me any good? Nah!

Examiner said "Right then, where are we?"

"Hurleston" I replied, "site telephone number 01270 blah blah blah, guy in charge of the site is John Lightfoot blah blah"

"Show me on the map" says examiner. "Cant. Let's go home" says I.

Examiner / CFI set us on track back to Barton where I landed with a huge red face and contemplated my future in aviation. That was around twenty years back and I still receive the occasional ribbing by test from our former CFI.;)

LOST PPL STUDENT
 

Don"t worry--I know someone who got lost in the circuit.

I am indeed that man......