This week marks 30 years since Nancy Grunwaldt - a carefree, young German tourist who loved cycling and her family - disappeared during what should have been the trip of a lifetime.
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Three decades on, Nancy's story continues to capture the public's imagination as many still hope her case will someday be solved.
Tasmanian author Melanie Calvert is one such individual.
Ms Calvert found the mystery of what happened to Nancy so compelling she wrote a novel titled Tasmania's Beaumaris Beach Mystery: What Happened to Nancy and Victoria?
"Nancy was the same age as me, and being Tasmanian, I feel like we bear a little bit of responsibility for what happened to her here on our island," she said.
"When I first started researching her and her case, I just wanted answers - I wanted to solve it.
"And I had all of this information I had compiled that nobody else seemed to know about so I needed to share it too because it might help to trigger something with someone or put pressure on a guilty party who might feel compelled to come forward finally.
"I listed all of the missing items so that if they did show up, someone would be able to recognise and identify them."
Nancy's story begins as a 26-year-old travel agent with a sunny disposition who had just spent $100 to hire a red mountain bike for two weeks as she planned to ride from the Tasmanian East Coast to Hobart to meet a friend.
On the morning of Friday, March 12, 1993, Nancy left the St Helens Hostel on her bicycle and rode south through Beaumaris in north-east Tasmania.
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It is believed that she stopped and walked on Beaumaris Beach and purchased a soft drink from the Surfside Motel before continuing her journey south.
It was here, five kilometres south of Scamander on the Tasman Highway while riding her bike, that the last confirmed sighting of Nancy was made.
Fellow tourists Christine Leidig and Tanja De Greve, who had spent the previous night with her at the St Helens Hotel, said they saw Nancy, saying, "We did not talk with her; we only realised that it was Nancy as we had already passed her. I am so sure that it was her because she was the only one travelling by bike".
Since that day, neither Nancy nor her bike has been found.
"Obviously, it is a complex, detailed and difficult case, with no simple or straightforward answer," Ms Calvert said.
"After all these years, I hope that the fate of Nancy will one day be solved."
Stephanie Dalton
The Examiner journalist and Launceston local covering health and court reporting in Northern Tasmania. Do you have a story? Contact me at Stephanie.Dalton@austcommunitymedia.com.au
The Examiner journalist and Launceston local covering health and court reporting in Northern Tasmania. Do you have a story? Contact me at Stephanie.Dalton@austcommunitymedia.com.au
