If Sophie Dillman and Patrick O’Connor ever had any doubts about how much their Home And Away characters, Ziggy Astoni and Dean Thompson, were – and still are – loved by fans, they have certainly been washed away like a great ocean tide since leaving the show.

For the past two years, Sophie and Patrick – partners in real life, as were their on-screen characters – have been travelling through Europe. Patrick was at a mate’s 40th in Ireland last year when he was finally able to appreciate the level of fandom for Ziggy and Dean in the Emerald Isle.

“Every pub I went to, someone put down a Guinness in front of me,” Patrick, 32, says with a laugh. “Because they were a fan of the show, they just bought me a Guinness.

“And it wasn’t so much, ‘We want to get you drunk’ or anything. But they were more like, ‘We love Home And Away, we love what you guys did there.’ And I always knew the show had an impact, but I didn’t realise that in a cold, little green town in Ireland, just how much Summer Bay means 
to these people.”

Fans were devastated when Sophie, 32, and Patrick, who joined the 
show in 2017 and 2018 respectively, announced they were leaving H&A in March 2023. After the kind of barrel ride many characters get on the show, Ziggy and Dean left on a happy note – moving to North Queensland with their daughter, Izzy, to be closer to Dean’s son, Jai (River Jarvis), and his mother, Amber (Madeleine Jevic).

Sophie and Patrick’s H&A journey was presumed to be over, with Sophie telling TV WEEK at the time that they were ready to “start a new chapter”. But you can imagine viewers’ feverish delight when it was revealed they would reprise their characters in special episodes filmed in the breathtaking Whitsunday region of North Queensland.

“We were pretty excited to see where the characters were at this point,” Patrick recalls, while Sophie adds that she was eager to explore what kind of life their characters would have away from the Bay.

“The craziest thing is it’s just like we’d never left,” Patrick says. “It is really lovely being back.”

“Honestly, we were driving into the [Channel Seven] building, and it felt 
like just yesterday we had left,” Sophie adds. “I walked in and, without thinking, I checked the call sheet and realised 
I wasn’t on it. It feels like coming home.”

When we rejoin Ziggy and Dean, they’re living their best life 
in sunny Queensland which, Sophie reveals, comprises 
of “fixing cars, playing with their baby in the sunshine and surfing”.

“It’s the idea of 
an ideal Australian upbringing,” she says.

Out of the blue, Mack (Emily Weir) and Levi (Tristan Gorey) show up, which kickstarts an adventure through spectacular locations that will have fans on their edges of their couches.

The tropical location couldn’t be further from their life together in Europe where they’ve driven a Husky-led sled across a frozen lake in Norway with the Northern Lights above them, travelled to Slovenia and Italy, the UK and US.

After their intense H&A experience, both Sophie and Patrick admit they needed to reconnect with life again.

“You lose a sense of who you are and what makes you excited about life,” Patrick says of working on something so all-encompassing. “Then going around Europe, you’re constantly stimulated – everything is new all the time. I feel happier than I did a couple of years ago.”

Sophie had a chance to test her acting chops doing theatre in London, as well as trying her hand at writing a column, where she discusses their travel experiences and her health battle with endometriosis.

“I’ve had a lot of women come and speak to me about their experiences,” 
she says. “I’m really glad that I’ve been able to make that happen.”

Wherever they have gone, there are constant reminders of their H&A lives.

“I had this lady chase me down in London,” Patrick says. “She’s like, ‘I’ve been calling you for 10 minutes. You 
walk mighty quick, but I’ve got a pram.’”

If anything, Sophie and Patrick’s TV return has made them realise how “fortunate” they are to have fallen in love while making the show.

“I constantly think about how lucky we are to be together,” Patrick says. “Home And Away will always be a big part of our lives, because we grew up there, we started dating on this show… It would be very difficult to forget what that means to us.”

Who knows, maybe H&A will have routine check-ins with Ziggy and Dean.

“I would love that,” Sophie enthuses. “Of course, we’d have to go snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef…”