Holiday of a lifetime ends in tragic drowning

It was meant to be the trip of a lifetime for Zimbabwean tourist Ratidzo Moyo.
Instead, it ended with his body found washed up on Mount Maunganui beach yesterday.
Mr Moyo had described how much he loved New Zealand on his MySpace web page just days before he vanished in surf on Friday. He was due to start university in September.
The 19-year-old was found yesterday about 500m from the spot where he disappeared while swimming with friends on Friday evening.
A former Mount Maunganui surf lifesaver and his wife were walking along the beach adjacent to Sutherland Rd about 7.15am when they came across the missing man's body.
Mr Moyo, a British citizen who lived in London, was visiting New Zealand on holiday with three others and the group were staying with a friend, also believed to be British, at his Auckland home.
They were visiting the Bay with their friend's father and were staying at a house in Mount Maunganui when they decided on a late-afternoon dip about 5pm.
Mr Moyo, who was described by his friends as a reasonably weak swimmer, got into trouble in a rip at Tay St beach. Senior Sergeant Carl Purcell said Mr Moyo's friends and surfers in the area at the time tried to rescue him.
"They actually got to him but couldn't hold on to him _ he just went under the waves," he said.
Surf Lifesaving BOP operations manager Megan Cleverley said surf lifesavers from Mount Maunganui and Omanu clubs patrolled up and down the Tay St area during the weekend so a beachgoer did not find the body.
"They were quite active all weekend doing running patrols," she said.
Ms Cleverly said there were a lot of beach users around at the time the body was discovered and lifeguards secured the area.
The Wellington-based police dive squad arrived in Mount Maunganui on Saturday night, and planned to search the artificial reef for Mr Moyo yesterday morning.
Mr Purcell said he had spoken to Mr Moyo's mother, who is working as a doctor in Lusaka.
It was likely his body would be sent there following a post-mortem examination.
He said Mr Moyo had a sister who was also living in London. Police were confident Mr Moyo had drowned and alcohol was not a factor. He was swimming in boardshorts.
Mr Moyo's MySpace page remained up this morning and conveyed his appreciation for New Zealand.
In one message he sent on Thursday, he told a friend: "It's all going reall (sic) good NZ is amazing ... will try and post some pics later."
He had been in the country a week when he drowned.
Before leaving the UK, Mr Moyo worked as a waiter at a restaurant in Biggleswade called ASK.
Assistant manager Sue Gipson today told the Bay of Plenty Times he viewed the four months he was to spend abroad as the ``trip of a lifetime' before he returned home to attend university in Newcastle in September.
He had been really looking forward to the trip since he began there in August 2007.
"Ever since he started here really, he had plans to go abroad," she said.
Ms Gipson said Mr Moyo had a friend in New Zealand he wanted to meet up with, and was due to stay here for one month before going to Fiji. ``He was just a lovely kid and had the world going for him.
"He was nasty to nobody, he was intelligent, he had it mapped out ... he just knew where he was going," she said.
She added: "I just had a little special thing for Rati, he was lovely, he was somebody special.
"He didn't deserve that."