A mobile phone belonging to missing Belgian tourist Celine Cremer has been found in a fresh search for the 31-year-old.<\/p>\n
It has been two and a half years since Ms Cremer disappeared from a walking trail near Philosopher Falls, just outside Waratah in Tasmania’s north-west.<\/p>\n
Four of Ms Cremer’s friends have travelled from Belgium to join the renewed search, which started on Saturday and is being led by private investigator Ken Gamble.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Belgian tourist Celine Cremer went missing in Tasmania two and a half years ago. (Supplied: Tasmania Police)<\/p>\n
Volunteer Tony Hage said he was at the rear of the search line when he spotted a mauve-coloured Samsung.<\/p>\n
“I just melted,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I couldn’t talk. I just could not talk.<\/p>\n
“I was waving to the outside or the eastern side boundary man and he didn’t know what I was doing and then I got a little bit more aggressive with my hand signals to bring him over, and then he realised.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tony Hage (left) said he was lost for words when he found the device. (Australian Story: Morgan Timms)<\/p>\n
Mr Hage said the phone was quickly verified by the group as Ms Cremer’s via the serial number.<\/p>\n
Ms Cremer’s Belgian friends also recognised it by its colour, he said.<\/p>\n
“You could see they were delighted something was positively found,” Mr Hage said.<\/p>\n
“Everyone has high spirits now.<\/p>\n
“There was a lot of information going backwards and forwards to Belgium \u2014 and her mother knows now, too.”<\/p>\n
He said it appeared Ms Cremer had dropped the phone, which was 60 metres away from her last recorded coordinates.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The phone was found on the first day of the search. (Australian Story: Morgan Timms)<\/p>\n
Mr Hage said the searchers took a long break after finding the phone before continuing and heading south-east.<\/p>\n
Police were told immediately after the discovery and were “attending the scene”.<\/p>\n
Police said the phone would now undergo forensic examination, and that a police search controller was working closely with the private search party to ensure any discoveries were managed appropriately.<\/p>\n
Ms Cremer’s white Honda CRV was found at the head of a track to Philosopher Falls about a week after she was last seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mobile phone belonging to missing Belgian tourist Celine Cremer has been found in a fresh search for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":443951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,204460,107200,204457,5811,50,204458,2331,204461,5812,22074,204459],"class_list":{"0":"post-443950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-backpacker","10":"tag-belgian","11":"tag-celine-cremer","12":"tag-missing","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-philosopher-falls","15":"tag-phone","16":"tag-rob-parsons","17":"tag-search","18":"tag-tourist","19":"tag-waratah"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115710910395346069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}