Natasha Loi and Boyd Gudex

A trans-Tasman union

Meeting at Mary White College in 2007 was the start of a true UNE romance for Natasha Loi and Boyd Gudex. But, like every good love story, its course did not always run smooth.

The couple maintained a long-distance relationship between Australia and New Zealand for almost two years until settling permanently in Armidale in 2013 – back where it all began.

“We had come from different places – me Tamworth and Boyd New Zealand – to converge on UNE to do our PhDs,” says Natasha. “There were a lot of moving parts to put us at the same place at the same time, and it’s incredible to think that everything just lined up.”

The pair, both mature-age, lived just four doors down from one another in Mary White at a time when it catered to older and postgraduate students.

“We were among people who were a lot older than we were, as well as some younger, but it was very supportive and we made some great friends,” Natasha says.

They recall a fun social life coordinated by resident assistant and friend the late Gary Essenstam. “He was a lovely man and would hold dinner parties, movie nights and drinking sessions in his flat,” Natasha says. “He was beloved throughout the whole college but especially in our block for creating such a welcoming space. I remember those occasions fondly.”

When romance blossomed between Natasha and Boyd, they would occasionally go out for a meal or a movie and watch movies in each other’s room. “It was cheap stuff, as students,” Boyd says.

It got decidedly more expensive when Boyd finished his PhD in livestock genetics in 2010 and returned to New Zealand. Natasha completed her PhD in psychology a year later and promptly moved across the Tasman to be with Boyd. But a job in UNE’s School of Psychology lured her back in early 2012.

“There was a lot of money spent on flights to and from New Zealand for some unknown reason …,” says Boyd, who would sometimes fly to Armidale (via Sydney) on a Friday and back to New Zealand two days’ later. “I got to know the respective merits of Air New Zealand and Qantas very well.”

Natasha moved back to Mary White and worked for one semester teaching at UNE, then took leave to return to New Zealand. “Then we both came back to Armidale and UNE in 2013,” she says. “There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing for about 18 months. We decided we were going to be together and it was hard, but technology made it a lot easier.”

The couple would Skype every night.

“And, once a week, we would set up the Skype camera so we could both watch the same television show or movie together,” says Boyd.

Their wedding, fittingly, was on the lawns of Booloominbah, attended by many of their UNE friends.

Today, Boyd is a technical consultant with the Agricultural Business Research Institute’s BREEDPLAN and Natasha continues as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology.

“I have always loved UNE and it’s nice to be contributing to a place that I feel gave me so much,” Natasha says. “UNE is a special place.”

Boyd mutters something inaudible about it not being as good as New Zealand followed by “coming to Armidale certainly worked out for me – a PhD from the place in the Southern Hemisphere to study livestock genetics, a wonderful wife and many great friends”.