Father finds son 2 years later - by biking in Europe! - LONG ARTICLE

He might have found his son after two years searching, but bringing the boy home to Australia is not yet a reality for Ken Thompson.

The former deputy NSW fire chief was told on Thursday his six-year-old son Andrew had been found after being missing for two years.

The boy's mother Melinda Stratton fled Australia with their child, vanishing the moment the pair stepped off a flight to Frankfurt.

Mr Thompson's euphoria has now been replaced with a waiting game.

Exhausted, he waits in Amsterdam to be reunited with his son, having not slept in three days.

He is yet to be shown a recent photograph of Andrew and said he initially found it hard to accept his son was found.

"I thought it was a hoax," Mr Thompson said yesterday.

"The Australian Embassy assured me it was him but when I woke up today I had my doubts.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

"The only way it has been proved was when I met with the police and they told me it was him."

Andrew is currently in foster care in Amsterdam.

Child psychologists are preparing him to meet his father and Mr Thompson has been told the reunion could be days or even a week away.

"I can't expect him to walk through the door and throw his arms around me," Mr Thompson said.

Once reunited with Andrew, Mr Thompson must then undergo a complex court case under the Hague Abduction Convention in the hope of taking his son back to their home in Hunters Hill, Sydney.

Ms Stratton is in custody in Amsterdam awaiting the hearing.

The Hague Convention treaty helps internationally abducted children be returned to parents.

But it is no guarantee Andrew can leave the Netherlands, where he is believed to have been living for the past year.

"The Australian Government has to write to The Hague and I've still got to find lawyers to represent me in court," he said.

Four months ago Mr Thompson quit his job to cycle around Europe wearing a photo of his missing son on a T-shirt to raise awareness.

"A few days before I was told Andrew had been found I was very low," he said.

The true hero, according to Mr Thompson, was the person who noticed something was not right with Andrew and Melinda's situation and Googled the boy's first name and the word "missing".

The result was hundreds of pages dedicated to the missing child and hundreds of Interpol alerts.