Simone Rachel Press and Michael Richard Foy met at the end of December 2016 after joining a tour group at a hostel in the remote town of Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory.
“They had a massive rainstorm,” said Mr. Foy, who had locked eyes with Ms. Press during the orientation for a rigorous 10-day tour through the Australian Outback to Melbourne. “They get that amount of rain once every 20 years,” he said, adding that waterfalls were rolling off Uluru, the massive sandstone rock formation.
While the group of 25 were stuck at the hostel an extra day, they had dinner at a local pub where Ms. Press offered Mr. Foy her leftover chicken Parmesan.
“Once she gave me her chicken parm,” said Mr. Foy, who was from Auckland, New Zealand, he recalled thinking ‘I’ll be nice to her.’’’
On the road, where daily temperature averaged 105 degrees, he gave her a hand with her bags and they became bus buddies.
“He’s very charming, calming and confident,” said Ms. Press, who grew up in Brooklyn, and in recent years lived in Santa Monica, Calif.
During the trip they rode a camel together, ate kangaroo burgers and stayed at a hotel in the underground opal mining town of Coober Pedy.
“I thought she was a go-getter and knew what she wanted, he said. “Not precious.”
Ms. Press’s sense of adventure reached its limit in the desert, where they had enjoyed beer and Shiraz under the stars, and had their first kiss.
“There was an eight-inch poisonous spider and a ton of creepy crawlies everywhere,” she said, and after a scorpion jumped out of a woman’s swag, a canvas sleeping compartment, she swiftly joined Mr. Foy in his swag.
As skeptical as they both were about anyone pairing off in the group, Ms. Press said they became a “tour couple,” and they kept in touch after the trip.
They soon visited each other in Santa Monica and Auckland, and later in 2017 Ms. Press showed up for a more extended stay with a one-way ticket and four suitcases. A few months later they got an apartment in Ponsonby, New Zealand.
After two years, she was ready to go home to friends and family and to her dachshund, Ellie, but before she did, Mr. Foy engineered a proposal in July 2019 at the CRC Speedshow Car Expo in New Zealand, where they each accompanied a racing professional — she in a Toyota Starlet and he in a Nissan March — in a racing and stunt demonstration. They then got out of their cars for an interview by the M.C. Their drivers got back into their cars, but Mr. Foy’s driver, Paul Radisich, a retired popular racer, got out of his car again.
“Hey mate,’’ Mr. Foy recalled him saying, as he held out a box. “You forgot this.’’
After Mr. Foy got down on one knee on the track, Ms. Press said yes to the rousing cheers and applause of spectators.
“My life has been a complete and utter adventure,” she said, and on Feb. 1 Mr. Foy relocated to Santa Monica.
■ The couple were married Feb. 14 by a clerk at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse in California. A small gathering enjoyed sparkling New Zealand wine and a three-tier pink rose cake with matching flowers made by Jordan Rondel, who owns the Caker, a popular bakery in Auckland.
■ Three of Mr. Foy’s cousins traveled from New Zealand for the wedding. His older brother, Phillip, surprised him and was also in attendance.
■ Ms. Press, 33, is the recruiting lead at Whip Media Group in Santa Monica, Calif. She graduated from Tufts University. She is the daughter of Risë Zucker Press and Leonard S. Press of Cherry Valley, N.Y.
■ Mr. Foy, also 33, until January was a project engineer at JMP Engineering, a mechanical engineering firm in Auckland. He graduated from the Manukau Institute of Technology. He is a son of Margaret Foy and Ernest Foy of Auckland, who own a tomato farm on the outskirts of the city.
