Asterales: as to what that weird being lost thing felt like: normally there's this solid little nugget of 'me', with the landscape around me. Directions are easy if one can see the sky, the slant of the light, where the sun is, even behind clouds - and at night, of course, the stars and moon. So I know where I am in terms of physical directions. Then there's - I guess the proprioceptive sense? The bit that says 'I am here, and I am just this shape, filling just this much space, and where I am going is ahead and a little left, where I have come from is behind and a little right'. Whatever was going on, that proprioceptive bit - wasn't there? Didn't work? It was strange, like leaning on something that is always there, and falling over when it suddenly isn't.
No idea what it was about that area. It was on the southern side of the MacDonnell Ranges, if that's any use.