The Auckland couple met briefly at a backpackers in Kenya in 1999 and married in February 2004.
The Auckland couple met briefly at a backpackers in Kenya in 1999 and married in February 2004.
Greg Davies is a structural engineer and Sarah Davies is a business coach who’s originally from the UK. The Auckland couple met briefly at a backpackers in Kenya in 1999 and married in February 2004. They have three teenage daughters.
Sarah says…
I was travelling with a close friend of mine, Amanda, who’s a Kiwi. Ironically, her mother actually ended up marrying us.
We were at the backpackers, playing cards, about six of us. It sounds weird to say, but I just felt like Greg oozed wonderfulness. I was shocked by myself.
I remember going to the dorm to get a jumper and Amanda came scuffling in and said, “You fancy Greg, don’t you?” I said, “Oh, God, is it so obvious?” I heard Greg say to [another backpacker] Kevin Copeland, “When you come through London, email me and we’ll catch up”. So, I knew that Kevin had Greg’s email address and I asked him for it a couple of days later. Nothing happened at the backpackers. We didn’t kiss or anything.
Although, we found Greg’s diary a few years later and it said he had enjoyed flirting with a brunette so we must have had some kind of interaction.
Back in the UK, I thought about Greg over the following months, but it just wasn’t the right time. I had some big goals I was working towards, and I wasn’t ready to have a serious relationship. And I knew it was going to be serious. I thought about Greg, and I dated other guys. Amanda would always say to me, “I don’t know why you’re bothering with them, Greg’s the guy you’re going to marry”. Then one night, about 18 months later, I was doing the household bills with my flatmate. I had this massive thought of Greg, so I emailed him that night and he had literally just broken up with his girlfriend the day before.
Amanda would always say to Sarah: "Greg's the guy you're going to marry."
I was very specific in my email because he wouldn’t know who I was. I just knew in my heart he would be in the UK, which is kind of crazy. I knew that we would get together. I emailed him under the guise of, “hey, we met travelling, let’s catch up”. He rang me and we arranged to meet outside Topshop in Oxford Circus, which was pretty much the worst place to meet. He didn’t have a clue what I looked like, so as he approached me, he rang my number to see who picked up their phone.
We went to Soho, to a cocktail bar, and we both got our own jug of cocktails. And then we just sat and talked all night. It was just great.
Greg says…
I moved to New Zealand from South Africa when I was 14, so I consider myself a Kiwi. It was my first trip back to South Africa and from there I travelled north. It was towards the end of my trip and Sarah had just arrived in Africa from the UK.
I’d been in and out of that backpackers a few times as part of my travels. I had about a week left in Africa before heading to the UK. And it was just one evening at the backpackers. I was staying in a tent and Sarah was in one of the hostel rooms.
I was travelling on my own, but I knew Kevin, one of the other people there whom I’d met in Uganda, and we ended up in the same place. So, like you do, backpackers play cards in the evening. I’d been doing that for a few nights, and then Sarah and Amanda joined in. It wasn’t a particularly late night because I left quite early the next morning because I was going to climb Mount Kenya at the start of a trek.
Sarah and I didn’t have any alone time at all. Obviously, we looked back in my diary and found what we were pretty sure was a reference to Sarah, but not a name. At the time, I was certainly oblivious to the fact she thought of me as wonderful. Okay, so I’ve never been particularly astute in terms of reading women.
The couple looked back at Greg's diary and found a reference to Sarah, but not a name.
When I met her outside Topshop, my first thoughts were that she was very attractive. I didn’t specifically recognise her from Kenya, though.
[In Soho] we had a great evening of conversation. And it was wonderful. I went home buzzing and hoped I could see more of her. We were both busy in London, so I didn’t see a lot of her initially. She made me chase her for three months. After our fourth date, before we jumped on our respective tubes, I suddenly went in for a kiss and got a bit of a cold shoulder.
[Sarah says: In hindsight, it would have been quite romantic. But at the time, I didn’t want our first kiss to be in a grubby, dirty old tube station.]
So, for the next date, I arranged for us to go to dinner on a Friday night. We had a lovely evening. I asked her, “Have I convinced you to spend a bit more time with me?” And she said, “yes”. Then, we kissed and that was it. After that, there was never a thought of anything different.
