Incredible twist after camper's 'crusty' find in Aussie river
Neil Keene was playing with his kids while camping when he spotted something 'floating underneath the water'.
An unexpected find on a family camping trip last week has reunited a young boy with a prized possession he lost seven months ago.
Neil Keene was camping with his young children and his brother's family at a popular campground near the Gloucester River on NSW's Mid North Coast when something caught his eye in the water.
"We were maybe 400 metres upstream of where the campground is and the kids were jumping in the water. My brother was helping them in at one end and I was further downstream to catch them," the Lake Macquarie man told Yahoo News. "I was waiting there when I saw this strap kind of just floating underneath the water."
The dad said whatever was in the river "didn't look natural" and it was clearly covered in mud and growth from the river.
"I grabbed it and pulled it out and it was this camera... it was so exciting," he said.
Camper's desperate efforts to identify owner of the camera
It took a great deal of effort for Neil to figure out who owned the Olympus waterproof camera, unable to access the photos initially.
"It was crusty and the locking mechanism wouldn't budge... I had to wait until I was home and use WD40," Neil said.
To his delight, there was an SD card inside and he was able to recover the photos — all of which portrayed a wholesome family holiday. He jumped on social media in hopes of finding the owner and within hours, he got a message.
"It was only a couple of hours before the woman whose son Curtis owned the camera got in touch... they're from the Gold Coast... they'd actually been travelling around Australia for a couple of years and Gloucester River was one of their last stops on their trip back in April," he said.
Curtis's mum Carly explained to Neil the family were devastated when he lost his camera and they waded through the river trying to find it.
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Family's first camping trip will be 'hard to live up to'
The camera is now on its way back to its rightful owner and Neil included a handwritten note and surprise for Curtis, who desperately wants his camera back.
"I've sent it back with a little note from our family to theirs and I put $10 in with the camera case... it's Christmas after all," he said.
"I have twin girls who are eight and this is their first camping trip... our second will be hard to live up to," he said. "Social media often gets a bad reputation, deservedly a lot of the time, but it can be used for good. This is evidence of that."
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