Former North Otago resident Sam Cochrane-Bulleid stepped off Australian warship HMAS Warramunga and into the waiting arms of proud mother Di Bulleid in Dunedin yesterday.
The Perth-based 20-year-old, a seaman electronics technician with the Royal Australian Navy, was on his first posting when he was reunited with about 20 close family members and friends in New Zealand.
His grandparents, Thelma and Graham Cochrane, of Kurow, and Marion and Victor Bulleid, of Dunedin, braved the freezing weather to meet him off the ship as it sailed into port about 11am.
Mrs Bulleid had flown from Brisbane to see her son, and other family members travelled to Dunedin from throughout Otago and Southland.
Mr Cochrane-Bulleid was raised in Hakataramea Valley until his family moved to Brisbane when he was 6.
The eldest of three sons, he became an Australian Navy recruit in 2010 and was last year posted to Perth.
He last saw family in New Zealand at Christmas and said it was a surprise to be welcomed by so many in Dunedin.
HMAS Warramunga has spent the past two weeks in New Zealand waters and berthed at Tauranga as well as Wellington.
The ship will sail to Hobart on its way back to Perth from Dunedin next week.
