Weka tries to claim wedding ring
A relaxing dip in the waters of Abel Tasman National Park turned stressful for a honeymooning couple when one of their wedding rings mysteriously disappeared.
Verena and Claus Schermuly were day tripping in the park last Friday when they reached Tinline Bay and decided to stop for a swim. The German couple are halfway through a monthlong New Zealand visit on their honeymoon, after getting married last May.
Before Claus got in the water, he gave Verena his wedding ring, as it was loose. She stowed it in a pencil case, then left it with her towel while she went swimming.
But after cooling off, Verena discovered the case was gone.
‘‘I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that it was gone, because it was a pencil case and our backpacks were still there with our phones, camera and passports. I thought maybe someone had mistaken it for a wallet.’’
The couple asked people nearby if they had seen anything, and walked back and forth along the beach, looking under bushes and trees. Eventually, they walked back to their car at Marahau.
But Claus wasn’t ready to give up, running the two kilometres back to Tinline and asking walkers if they had seen the case.
‘‘In the end, we just continued our journey to Richmond, where we were staying for the night,’’ Verena said.
The next day, they headed for Picton to catch the Cook Strait ferry, but made a final stop at the Department of Conservation visitor centre in Nelson, where they told their story to ranger Marion James. ‘‘She knew right away that it must have been a weka,’’ Verena said.
‘‘She suggested we go back and have a look again, even deeper in the bush. She was so confident it must be still there.’’
The couple changed their ferry booking and went back to Tinline. After half an hour of searching, Claus found the pencil case, camouflaged by the undergrowth.
‘‘It was well hidden in the bush – that’s probably why we didn’t see it the first time,’’ he said.
‘‘We did see a couple of wekas walking across the hiking track, but we didn’t even think it could be them.’’
The case was about 10 metres from where they had been sitting, between the beach and the walking track.
Both were very pleased to be reunited with the ring. ‘‘A wedding ring is not something you can simply replace. It would not be the same,’’ Claus said.
James herself had an experience with a thieving weka while camping in the Marlborough Sounds.
‘‘A weka nicked off with some of our food, and my husband and son managed to find the weka lair, and in it were all these cosmetic cases,’’ she said.
She was ‘‘absolutely rapt’’ that the couple found the ring.
DOC Motueka ranger Ivan Rogers said weka were bold and intelligent birds that were ‘‘generalist feeders’’. They would typically take whatever they could get and make off with it before working out if it was food, then discarding it if it wasn’t.