A couple’s first date has turned out nightmarish after the woman fell off the cliff while they tried to take a sweet selfie to mark their first meeting.
23-year-old James Nichols, who hails from Ashbourne, Derbyshire, fell in love with 21-year–old Cheynne Holloway after they met online.
Nicholas travelled 8,000 miles from England to meet Holloway but unfortunately, she did not live to tell the sweet experience of the first date in South Africa.
Mirror UK reports that the romantic couple went for a first date at tourist hotspot Northcliff Hill, they stopped to take a selfie as the sun set in Johannesburg.
Unfortunately, the rocks gave way beneath the woman’s feet and she fell 50ft to her death while her boyfriend was trying to adjust the tripod.
A source, Armand Goosen, who claimed to have witnessed the event said Nicholas was unaware of the tragedy until he raised his head to discover that his girlfriend was missing from the cliff.
Goosen said that Nicholas began screaming: “Where is she? Where is she?”
He discovered her body and attempted to give her first aid for 20 minutes before paramedics arrived, and declared that she has died.
Nicholas has returned to the cliff’s edge with his late girlfriend’s mum to pay tributes to the tragic musician.
Keen musician Holloway was the bassist in her band called Burning Blue.
Writing a tribute on its Facebook page, the band said, “The most beautiful, shining soul has left us. We can’t even think right now.
“There are simply no words.”
To add to his grief, Nicholas had a sentimental item stolen after he returned to the UK.
Before they met, Holloway had placed a rock on a rock pile in the city’s Botanical Gardens and sent him a video saying they would reclaim it together when he arrived.
Devastated Nicholas went to retrieve it himself in the days after her death, but when thieves targeted his car in Salford after he returned to the UK, they made off with the rock.
He is now offering a £300 reward to anyone who would either return the item or give a meaningful information that would lead to the recovery of the item.
He said, “I didn’t realise at first.
“They had rummaged all through the car but it didn’t look like they had taken anything.
“But then I saw it was gone and that’s when the sadness really dawned on me.
“Whoever has took it obviously won’t have realised and have probably just thrown it. But it’s so important to me and it can’t be replaced.
“After Cheynee died, I made it my mission to find it and to find the exact rock she left like that and bring it back to England was unbelievable.
“It’s something I would cherish for the rest of my life.
“I had the rock with me as I was going hiking in the Lake District so decided to bring it with me, as if I was bringing a piece of her with me on my adventure.”
