‘I Still Call Australia Home’
For many, those five words are enough to trigger memories, or even a couple of tears, at the thought of the iconic 1999 Qantas commercial. And if you turned the telly on when this ad was one, with those beautiful landscapes and voices full of emotion, you’d be lucky to get through it without a lump in your throat.
For those who need a reminder, or a reason to get emotional, this is the ad:
Now, 16 years since the ad was first shot, there’s a romantic twist. Two of the children that were part of the choir have gotten engaged, and are set to get married in January next year at the picturesque Riverstone Estate in Melbourne’s Yarra Valley.
They were just nine years old when they first met and played their part in the iconic choir scene at Uluru, which was filmed in the late 90s. Little did Elysia Simons and Paul Van Der Toorren know that that chance meeting would lead them to return to this spot to seal their fairytale romance forevermore, 16 years later.
Elysia, or Ell as she goes by, told Daily Mail Australia that they had fun even back when they first met.
“We had been placed next to each other for the last scene of the Qantas ad singing ‘I Still Call Australia Home’,” she said.
“During takes we would have to wait a while so would muck around together. I remember him looking over at me with this shy smile on his face. He was pretty quiet, but very cute and, like now, was just listening the whole time.”
Ell and Paul drifted in and out of contact in the coming years, until mutual friends at high school and social media brought them back together again.
When it came time for Paul to pop the question, he made up an elaborate plan to get her back to the rock without raising her suspicions.
Read Ell’s full Instagram post below:
She says that she soon realised that “what we had was better than the best kind of love”.
Talking about the proposal, she says that Qantas had called her and wanted them to be a part of a special Field off Light documentary for channel 9, offered to fly them to central Australia in business class.
“We stopped at sunset at the most breathtaking spot near Uluru and as we were being interviewed Paul confessed that we were not actually there to view the field of light at all. We were there because he needed a way to get me back to the special place we had met 16 years ago. He had enlisted the help of Qantas and channel 9 to bring me back without knowing what was really going on at all! Whilst the cameras were rolling he got down on one knee and fought back (badly fought back) tears to ask me to MARRY HIM AND I SAID “OF COURSE!!!””
Congratulations to the lovely couple, it’s a story of love that lasts a lifetime.