FRIENDS and family have farewelled Gary Tweddle two months after he went missing in the Blue Mountains.
More than 170 people gathered at North Chapel in North Ryde for a memorial service on Friday after the 23-year-old’s body was recovered from a cliff last week.
He went missing from a work conference in Leura in the early hours of 16 July.
He had called colleagues at around midnight to tell them he was lost in bushland and was never seen again.
His partner, Anika Haigh, helped look for him until his body was spotted at Sublime Point by an ambulance rescue helicopter during a training exercise earlier this month.
“I feel blessed to have experienced the beautiful feeling of being deeply and crazily in love,” she told mourners, who came dressed in colourful clothing as a tribute to his exuberant personality.
She said Gary would want people to celebrate his life rather than mourn his loss, and recalled how his sense of humour drew people to him.
“He spent so much of his day making awful dad jokes.”
His father, David, thanked the more than 1000 people who helped search for his son, affectionately known as Gaz.
This included Oracle colleagues from Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand who travelled to the Blue Mountains to help what has been described as the largest ever search in that area.
“These 1000 people brought our boy back,” he said.
“From Gary – thank you to you all.”
His mother, Carol Streatfield, said she would struggle to accept that her son was not coming back.
“There are no words to say how much I will miss you.”
Representatives from NSW Police, the SES and other volunteer organisations also attended the service.
Mourners were asked to make donations, in lieu of flowers, to the volunteers involved in the search. – AAP