Bare Kiwi travel blogger reunites American newlyweds with honeymoon photos

Kyle Mulinder takes a photo of the camera he saved from the road and returns it to owners and travelers who thought they had lost their honeymoon memories.

American newlyweds could have left their New Zealand honeymoon heartbroken after they lost their camera along with every honeymoon photo. 

The couple from Miami Florida had recently flown to the South Island to soak up Kiwi life and selfie their way across the country’s diverse landscape.

They were driving through Nelson on their way to Kaikoura on Sunday when they left their $600 GoPro HERO5 on the roof of their vehicle.

It was filled with memories of their first trip together as husband and wife but somewhere along the road through St Arnaud they realised they had lost it.

Adventure travel blogger Kyle Mulinder of Bare Kiwi was driving behind a semi-trailer on Sunday when he saw the massive truck wheels flick something up from the road and send it flying through the air.

Having spent more than his fair share of hours on the other end of a selfie stick he knew it wasn’t any ordinary apparatus.

“I saw it flying in the air. So it’s gone under all the [truck’s] wheels and just flying in pieces everywhere,” he said.

He decided to pull over and found the selfie stick was in pieces but the camera didn’t have a scratch 

“That’s incredible, isn’t it?”

He knew someone would be “heartbroken” without their camera and the photos they had lost.

Mulinder said he quickly decided he would try and upload the photos and use social media to try and reunite the camera with its rightful owners.

Mulinder said he noticed a hire vehicle drive slowly up the road in the opposite direction as he mulled over his next step by the side of the road.

“I thought, ‘I know what they’re doing’. I sort of just waved to them.”

The couple in the rental car drove past Mulinder, made a U-turn further up the road and pulled over to meet him near Nelson Lakes.

“Oh, mate they were absolutely blown away.” “Their entire honeymoon was on that one camera.”

Muliner took the opportunity to broadcast the moment he reunited the camera with its rightful owners. He shared the couple’s excitement on his Facebook page.

He said having spoken to the couple he learnt they did not discover they had lost the camera until after they had been on the road for over an hour.

He said they told him they were “absolutely distraught” not knowing where they would look, or even if they would find their special memories ever again.

“They had just accidently left it on the roof of their car.” “They were absolutely stoked [when they saw the camera].”

Muliner said he was also on his way to Kaikoura to film Wings Over Whales. He decided to offer them a plane ride to go whale watching the following day.

“I was like, well, this is a really nice couple. Let’s see what we can do to make their NZ experience even better. So their experience of NZ has been pretty awesome. They were loving it,” he said.

“Those are irreplaceable those photos that are on that camera and the next day they were using it in the plane.”

Mulinder said the couple most enjoyed the people and the pristine landscapes of NZ. They were next headed for Christchurch and Queenstown beyond that.

 – Stuff

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