Gus Lamont’s father Joshua has broken cover for the first time in more than a month.

Still no closer to learning what has happened to his four-year-old boy since he vanished in the South Australian Outback weeks ago, the tragic ordeal appeared to be taking its toll on the former country musician.

Mr Lamont was pictured on Tuesday looking distinctly more pale and thin than older photos, his red hair and beard flecked with grey as he appeared to be going to work dressed in tradie hi-vis.

When briefly approached for comment by Daily Mail, the devastated father reacted angrily.

His son Gus vanished from his maternal grandparents’ remote outback station 40km south of Yunta on the evening of September 27.

Police said he was last seen playing in a pile of sand in front of the homestead around 5pm by grandmother, Shannon Murray.

When she went to call him in at 5.30pm he was gone.

At the time, Gus’s other grandparent Josie Murray and his mother Jessica Murray were tending sheep 10km away from the homestead.

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Josh Lamont, the father of missing boy Gus Lamont, was pictured in public for the first time in about six weeks on Tuesday

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Yunta child Gus Lamont, 4, has been missing since September 27

Joshua was living in a ramshackle $80,000 farmhouse in Belalie North – a two-hour drive away from the Lamont’s Outback sheep station – while still in a relationship with Jess.

Sources said he was renovating the dilapidated property to allow his young family, which also includes one-year-old son Ronnie, to move in and settle down.

The house now stands eerily empty.

Last month, Joshua appeared to be staying with his brother Samuel.

At the time, his brother told Daily Mail that Joshua wasn’t ready to be interviewed about his missing son, but when asked again on Tuesday if there had been any change, Samuel loudly shouted to ‘get off the property, now’.

Many questions remained unanswered as police continue to search for Gus near his maternal grandparents’ remote station south of Yunta.

Josh Lamont now appears to be living in Adelaide, more than 290km away from where his son was last seen.

Daily Mail understands he is staying in a home owned by Shannon and Josie, despite multiple sources recently claiming he didn’t get along with Jess’s parents.

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Police searched a 2km radius of the Oak Park Station homestead, later expanding to 5km

The Murrays have owned the property in Adelaide’s north-western suburbs since 2009, and it’s now worth more than $1million.

Jessica has not been seen since Gus vanished on September 27.

It was widely understood that she remained at Oak Park Station, where she was living with her parents, Gus, and one year old Ronnie – the other son she shares with Josh.

However, a source close to Jess told Daily Mail exclusively that Yunta locals believe the grieving mother is in hiding.

It is not suggested any family members are involved in Gus’s disappearance and police said they believe the boy wandered off.

‘She probably got the hell out of there in the weeks after it happened… or is staying with a neighbour,’ the source said.

Jessica is understood to have attended school locally, before skipping year 12 and going straight to university.

Family friends have described her as ‘extremely bright’ but also ‘very shy’.

Friends of Josh’s recently revealed he works as a handyman, after years of touring the South Australian pub and rodeo scene as front-man of country music band The Cut Snakes.

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Friends said the father, who works as a handyman, has taken his boy’s disappearance extremely hard

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Gus’ devastated parents, Jessica Murray and Joshua Lamont

It was also claimed he did not live at Oak Park Station with his partner and children due to ‘not getting along’ with Josie.

Instead, he shared a ‘commuter relationship’ with Jess.

On October 31, police returned to Gus’ family’s property for a third time to drain 3.2million litres of water from a dam on the property, but heartbreakingly, they found ‘nothing of significance’.

Last week, SA Police commissioner Grant Stevens revealed there had been independent reviews of their search for Gus.

‘We’ve done a minimum of two reviews in relation to the searching exercise from the moment we were advised that Gus had gone missing,’ he said.

‘Peer-reviews by experts who have taken an objective view of whether or not things could have gone differently.

‘Those reviews have identified opportunities to enhance what we’ve done but there’s been no criticism of the search effort.’

He has not ruled out returning to Oak Park Station for a fourth search.

‘We’ve been acting on the advice of survivability experts, doctors, medical staff, in relation to how far Gus might travel and how long he would be able to survive without any support or assistance,’ he said.

‘That was a factor that dictated how far we would search and how long.

‘We are continuing to go back because we are still committed to recovering Gus for the family, so everybody has some sense of closure in relation to what’s occurred up in Yunta.’