What a spot! Engagement ring find delights local bride

A couple of good blokes are being hailed as heroes by a delighted local bride to be – one of them her fiancé, after her precious engagement ring was miraculously located under ice on top of the Crown Range.

Remarkables Primary teacher Abby Cavanagh, who moved to Queenstown from Auckland earlier this year with fiancé of four years Dan Weafer, noticed her engagement ring missing on 29 June. She’d been walking the Kelvin Heights Track during the weekend, but a search there and post on the Queenstown Community page turned up no leads.

“I retraced my steps, and we searched everywhere, tipping the bedroom upside down,” Abby, whose mum is Queenstown Primary School principal Fiona Cavanagh, says.

She’d all but given up hope, however, Dan, who was facing forking out another several thousand dollars for a new ring and wanted the saga to end, started checking videos he’d taken of Abby playing in the snow on top of the Crown Range the day before it was noticed missing. “He just had a feeling he should check the videos,” she says.

Incredibly, Dan spotted the ring flying through the air in a video of Abby shaking snow off her freezing hands after a fun snow fight.

A builder, he rang Abby from work on Thursday night, 10 July, and knocked off early so they could go up and search.

“We looked for an hour and a half. I was way too cold, and it was getting dark.” She posted on the community page asking for a metal detector and was overwhelmed by the kindness and response, about half a dozen detectors offered straight away, one from as far away as Wānaka.

One offer took the prize – Arrowtown man Ryan Domenico de Dominicis, who was keen to try out his new metal detector, not only offered to help but insisted on heading up there well after dark on Thursday night rather than waiting until the next day as Abby suggested. “We’d only just got home, and Dan went back up to help him. By the time he got there Ryan had already found the ring. He was frothing, so keen to help,” a very grateful Abby says.

“Miraculously, it wasn’t damaged or scratched at all and had been sitting there untouched for 11 days,” she says. “The snow it fell in had melted to the ground and it was just sitting in a puddle under a piece of ice!

“I’d been throwing snow up into the air and I’ve lost weight lately, so it must’ve flung off while I was shaking my hands out in front of me.”

“I was just overwhelmingly grateful. I had tears in my eyes and was jumping up and down, so happy.” She’d offered a cash reward which Ryan didn’t want to take but the couple insisted, giving him $100.

 

Abby says she’s hugely grateful to all of those who offered to help and was blown away by all of those like Ryan offering to go out of their way to help. “This is such an amazing community. People really look after each other,” she says. “I broke down on the Kelvin Heights Road several months ago and three vehicles stopped to help me within 10 minutes.”

To top off the tale Ryan just happens to be a wedding photographer, so guess who’s first in line to take the wedding photos next year? And yes, Abby reckons they’d better choose the top of the Crown Range as the photo location.

“I think this is a sign. It’s prompted us to finally get married. We always planned to get married when we moved to Queenstown, so this has given us a bit of a kick along,” Abby says, adding that they will be “very careful with the rings”!

They’re hoping to set a date for autumn next year.

With school starting back on Monday Abby’s likely to be top holiday news with her Year 1 class and in the Remarkables School staffroom.