Former William Tyrrell detective gives take on search for missing boy Gus Lamont

One of the nation's most high-profile former detectives says he's confident South Australian police won't lose hope in the search for four-year-old Gus Lamont.

Authorities have been conducting extensive searches of the remote area around Yunta, in the state's Mid North, focusing on the possibility that the child wandered off.

Gary Jubelin, a former detective who led the investigation into the 2014 disappearance of William Tyrrell in NSW, has offered his take on Gus's disappearance.

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"A three- or four-year-old child, you can't turn your back on them, so it's rare they disappear like this," he said. 

"90 per cent of times the child is found, it's these rare situations where there are no answers and that creates a mystery," he added.

South Australian police are exploring all avenues in the young boy's disappearance.

"The environment would play a big part in how the police are approaching this," Jubelin said, adding that "it's very hard to move onto the criminal investigation side of it unless you've exhausted the possibility that the child has just wandered off".

While the search continues, Jubelin said investigators may be withholding some information from the public.

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"Police might be aware of stuff that they are not speaking to the public about, which is understandable," he said.

"There are certain things that they [have] got to withhold."

Major crime detectives are maintaining close contact with Gus Lamont's family as the investigation progresses, with police refusing to give up hope of finding the four-year-old. 

"I'm sure the police working on this case wake up every day and say 'I'm going to solve this case, we will solve this case'," Jubelin said.

"It's not a case you [can] just walk away [from] and say 'we don't know what happened'."

This article was produced with the assistance of 9ExPress.