Sonia Pope with her returned handbag (right) and the one she bought to replace it (left). Photo: Donnchadh Wernstrom.
“I’d forgotten all about it. It’s just one of those things where you think, ‘Well, I’ll never see that again’.”
But this week, Sonia Pope was proven wrong.
The South Coast woman has made headlines after a snorkeller stumbled across her black leather handbag on the rocks at South Broulee Beach, 14 months after it had gone missing.
Perhaps even more nature-defyingly, the car keys and iPhone 12 inside still worked.
“Now I have seen it again, I just want to know what happened,” she told Region.
The story began on Thursday afternoon, 20 November 2023.
Between 4 pm and 6 pm, Sonia was at a colleague’s farewell party at The Oaks Ranch hotel at Mossy Point and enjoyed two drinks – enough that she needed a friend to drop her off at her Broulee home afterwards.
That’s when she realised her handbag was gone.
“I walked the 5 km back to Oaks Ranch, thinking my bag had just dropped between my car and my friend’s car, but it wasn’t there,” she said.
“I searched the area. It was pretty muddy. I went in and spoke to the staff behind the bar and the staff at reception, but no sign of it.”
The handbag’s contents were a little bit worse for wear. Photo: Donnchadh Wernstrom.
Then panic set in.
“The next day, when I went to work at the school, I was a bit panicked. I told the principal my bag had been lost or stolen – I assumed stolen – and whoever had it also had my address, my car keys, my house keys, and I live alone. I was pretty concerned.”
The police noted her report “but didn’t hold out a lot of hope”.
She slowly set about replacing everything, including—most frustratingly—buying a new iPhone while still paying off the missing one.
She’d nearly forgotten about the whole ordeal when, 14 months later, she received a phone call from her daughter, Tahlia Jones.
“I was on a road trip up north, and Tahlia and her boyfriend were at my house in Broulee, and they looked out the window one morning to see a surf buggy coming up the driveway with a lifeguard in it,” Sonia said.
Tahlia immediately recognised the bag in his hand and phoned her mum with “a little story to tell”.
A local snorkeller had come across the handbag while in the water around the rocks at South Broulee Beach and handed it in.
Everything was still inside, albeit wet and sandy. After letting the iPhone rest in a bowl of dry rice for several days, they were “stunned” to discover it charged when plugged in and the screen turned on.
“I got a little bit excited when I saw that, but then the screen just started flashing green, so I don’t know whether I’ll take it to a phone person or I’ll just let it RIP.”
Sonia was amazed to see the phone light up. Photo: Donnchadh Wernstrom.
As for how it ended up about 6 km from The Oaks Ranch and in the sea, that remains a mystery.
“One theory is that it ended up in a stormwater drain for some time because it couldn’t have been in the ocean all that time, or it would have been covered in barnacles,” Sonia said.
“Someone has said a bird; I’ve always thought maybe the kangaroos just got clever.”
She’s all but ruled out theft because “surely if you stole a bag, you’d take the money and phone”.
However, it made the journey, and she said it’s just “absolutely such a relief” to have it back.
“I bought the bag myself, but it was just one of those bags that I loved – everything about it. It’s just a simple black Country Road bag, but it fits everything that I needed.”
She’s pinned the crusty $20 note from inside the bag to her wall as a reminder that “miracles do happen”.
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