Add Category
Posted
When Andrew Clough lost his digital camera on a far north Queensland rafting trip in 2012, he had no idea it would become a modern-day 'message in a bottle'.
The Brisbane man and his son capsized on the North Johnstone River, east of Innisfail, and the camera sank to the bottom.
They spent an hour looking for it, with no luck, but Mr Clough said he still held out hope he would see the treasured device again.
"Eventually we gave up and I thought 'Well, maybe one day it'll turn up' because it was in a waterproof case," Mr Clough said.
"I actually thought that it might be found within a few months, it might end up in a pool downstream or on a little sandy beach and the next lot of people who go rafting down this river might come across it."
'One day' was in fact eight years later. Incredibly, it only recently washed up on a remote Cape York beach — a staggering 450 kilometres to the north.
'Wow, these are part of someone's life'
Hope Vale local Phil Morris and his wife, Reshmi, are avid beachcombers and make regular trips to Cape Flattery to scour through the flotsam and jetsam.
"I saw this bit of clear, hard plastic. I saw the edge of it and thought it looked like waterproof housing for a camera because we've found a few of them before," Mr Morris said.
"As soon as I picked it up, I saw it had a bit of rust stain and sludge on it and thought 'This looks like it's been in the water for a fair while'."
Mr Morris took the camera home, cleaned it up, and thought he would try his luck with a universal charger to get the device to power up.
"The pictures came up and I saw the [dates]," Mr Morris said.
"I saw the photos and thought 'Wow, these are part of someone's life'.
"Photos on a camera are like your memories, part of someone's life, frozen in time."
That sentiment motivated the aged-care worker to reunite the camera with its owner so he took to social media and put the call out.
Social connection reunites owner with missing device
Just weeks prior to his FNQ father-son bonding trip, Andrew Clough had been on another rafting expedition with a friend in Brazil.
It was images from the overseas adventure that Mr Morris posted on several Facebook groups asking if anyone knew the identities of the two men.
In fewer than five hours, a friend of Andrew Clough's saw the post and sent the retired mining engineer a message that left him truly amazed.
"I subsequently contacted Phil and, sure enough, it was the camera that had been lost 450 kilometres to the south of that beach," Mr Clough said.
"It's a modern message in a bottle."
Mr Clough had backed up the photos from Brazil upon his return in 2012 but is grateful to now have the images from a special time with his son.
"The exciting thing for me is I took photos on the North Johnstone, which obviously I don't have, but I'm expecting to see photos of my son and myself on this trip that I thought had been lost forever."
Lost camera develops new friendship
The camera will be in transit once again, this time by mail, when Phil Morris mails it back on his next trip to Cooktown.
Both men say the experience has sparked a new friendship based on a mutual love of adventure in the outdoors and the Cloughs are planning a trip to the far north so the two can meet in person.
"We've swapped stories about our experiences in the wild, he's told me about how he's come across taipans in the bush and boating along the north tropical coast," Mr Clough said.
"He seems like a good, down-to-earth, decent human being."
The feeling is mutual.
"He's adventurous and I'm adventurous," Mr Morris said.
"Hopefully when all of this drama that we're having worldwide is over, it'll be nice for them to come up."
Mr Morris plans to take the Cloughs to the very beach where the long-lost camera was finally found.
Topics: human-interest, lifestyle-and-leisure, travel-and-tourism, arts-and-entertainment, photography, cairns-4870, cooktown-4895