When random strangers band together, amazing things can happen – like reuniting a wedding ring with its owner after it was lost in the Simpson Desert.
It almost sounds too good to be true, but we guess there’s still some positive karma in the world.
Elizabeth Docherty and her husband live in New South Wales and took a ‘babymoon’ trip to the desert in June before the arrival of their new bub. When she was taking photos on the sand dunes, she realised her ring was missing.
The gorgeous ruby and diamond ring was found by a stranger and posted on Facebook by ABC Western Queensland on Tuesday. The post read, “Talk about finding a needle in a… desert! Travellers have located a ring in the Simpson Desert – the world’s longest parallel sand dunes!”
It wracked up more than 6,000 shares around the country and soon found its owner… 17,000km away and in just eight hours.
“My sister-in-law tagged me in a post on Facebook and called me to have a look at this post that the ABC had put up, but I couldn’t believe it,” Docherty told ABC News.
“It was my wedding band that I had lost over on Big Red in June.”
The couple on their desert babymoon. Image via Facebook.
Unfortunately, she won’t be able to be reunited with the ring in person until the sole Birdsville police officer gets mobile reception (hey, it is the outback after all) and verifies it. However, she’s confident that the ring is hers and will prove it by showing her desert pass and describing the engraving inside the band.
Docherty is stunned (and amazed) by the discovery. “You walk that sand dune – and you walk 10 metres and you don’t know which way you’ve just come from,” she said. “It’s huge. I cannot believe someone’s found it in the magnitude of sand that’s there.”
“My fingers are swelling up and down because we’re having a baby in September — our first child, and this couldn’t have come at a better time,” she said. “I’m just thrilled.”
So are we, Docherty!
