Mourners from across the world have farewelled a teenager who died alone on an Australian beach surrounded by a pack of dingoes.<\/p>\n
Close friends and family gathered in the Campbell River Baptist Church in the Canadian province of British Columbia to remember Piper James, the feisty 19-year-old backpacker whose life was cut short on the Queensland island K’gari on January 19.<\/p>\n
Her Australian friends joined the service in spirit, watching online on Sunday morning to farewell the brave teenager who ran toward danger, who loved deeply and was filled with joy.<\/p>\n
Piper James and her best friend Taylor Stricker were on the Down Under trip of a lifetime when World Heritage-listed K’gari, formerly Fraser Island, captured their hearts.<\/p>\n
The pair landed a job on the island working at a hostel before James took a dawn walk on the beach from which she never returned.<\/p>\n
Her body was found surrounded by a pack of dingoes near the island’s popular tourist site, the SS Maheno wreck.<\/p>\n
An autopsy uncovered evidence of “pre-mortem” dingo bites but said drowning was the most likely cause of death.<\/p>\n
The matter is still being investigated by the coroner.<\/p>\n
Almost six weeks after losing their daughter, grieving parents Todd and Angela James paid tribute to their brave “doodlebug”.<\/p>\n
“You were only 19, yet you lived with more courage and fire than most people do in a lifetime,” Angela James told the congregation.<\/p>\n
“You ran toward danger as a wild firefighter, chased the thrill of life on your motocross bike, trusted your hands and heart on rock faces and leapt into the open sky without fear.<\/p>\n
“You taught me that bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s choosing life anyway.” <\/p>\n
Dad Todd said he fell in love with his daughter the moment she entered the world. <\/p>\n
“Holding you in my arms, taking you for walks, you are the love of our life,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I used to tell you, nothing comes easy in life. Anything worth having was worth working hard for and I saw that in you.”<\/p>\n
The boss of the K’gari hostel where Piper spent her final days travelled to Campbell River on behalf of her Australian connections.<\/p>\n
“If there was ever a perfect fit, it would be these two girls – we’d had people work for us before, who were terrified to get out of the car,” Arty Cipak said.<\/p>\n
“They’d heard all the stories – the spiders, the snakes and everything else. These two girls were just fun.<\/p>\n
“Although Piper was only with us for a short time, she was blazing through the universe amongst a sea of dying stars.” <\/p>\n
K’gari traditional owners, the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation, in early February held a smoking ceremony on the stretch of sand where Piper’s body was found, and Cipak said the teen would forever be part of the island.<\/p>\n
The mourners were told of the legend of the sky god Princess K’gari, who fell in love with the island and could not bear to leave, and asked that she be transformed into the land.<\/p>\n
“Piper also fell in love with the island of K’gari and although she may not be with us in the physical form, she’s now with Princess K’gari,” Cipak said.<\/p>\n
“She’s in the sky, she’s in the sand, the lakes, the sea. I’ll see her in every sunrise and every sunset.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mourners from across the world have farewelled a teenager who died alone on an Australian beach surrounded by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-307473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-north-america","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}