'Perfect couple' lost in tragic car accident in Hawke's Bay

Wednesday, 20 May 2020

Maja Sanders was the kind of person who could create something beautiful from nothing.

She met Joshua Van Hooijdonk while studying Fine Arts at Hawke's Bay's Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) and they just clicked.

Josh was studying media as well as Fine Arts, and the couple had recently moved in together.

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But a day trip to Taupō ended in tragedy as the pair lost their lives in a fatal car crash last Saturday. 

Maja had turned 20, just four days before the trip.

Bruce Sanders, Maja's father, described them as the ''perfect couple''. 

'They were like strawberries and cream, they just went perfectly together,' he told Stuff.

'Maja was so talented, she could turn the ugliest thing into something beautiful. I used to have one of those old cargo trunks in my garage, and she just transformed it into something sparkling and new.'

He said Maja was extremely determined and had a love for the outdoors. 

'We used to go up Te Mata Peak together and I would tell her to set goals, like run 20 metres of the flats and then 10 metres on the hills. As she got better, I would say 'don't stop, just keep going'.

'One day I found her up the top of the Peak, she'd beat me to it. She said 'I didn't stop, Dad,' she pushed herself past the point of pain, she was just incredible.

'I told her to use that philosophy with any challenge in life, and that's what she did.' 

Maja's cousin, Morgan Sanders, described the young woman as an ''absolute shining beam of light''.

'One of the last conversations I had with her was about her future endeavours and what she wanted to do once she had completed her degree, this included either continuing study by then gaining a teaching degree (to become an art teacher) or taking the option of a company internship.'

Morgan said when Maja met Josh, their parents knew they had found their ''forever love''.

'Who would have thought that would end up ringing true in more ways than one,' she said.

Josh's mother, Bronwyn Gardner, told NZME their 'beloved son' was 'kind and caring, an honest, loyal and a genuinely kind soul'.

 He was a recipient of a Hastings Heretaunga Lions Club Young Achievers Award in 2018.

'Josh had so much potential he would never get a chance to share with the world and there were so many more memories he should have been able to make too,' she said.