When Haylee Woolsey got lunchtime detention at Primbee Public School, her best mate Phoebe Thomas copped it too - guilty by association.
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The girls met in kindergarten and were each other's shadows throughout primary school and best friends all their lives.
University sent them on separate courses but - as fate would have it - into the same graduation ceremony, on Wednesday afternoon.
The old friends - now 21 - donned matching royal blue trenchers at the University of Wollongong, where Miss Woolsey graduated with a bachelor of health science in indigenous health studies and Miss Thomas graduated with a bachelor of science medicine and health.
"It doesn't seem real," said Miss Woolsey.
"This is something that we'd dream about, and now it's happening. We come from little Primbee and now we're in these weird hats".
Although jobs and further study are now setting them on increasingly different paths, the two are confident their friendship will survive.
"We both still live in Primbee and our families still do everything together - birthdays, Christmas ...," Miss Thomas said.
Added Miss Woolsey: "It's not the end of the road, its the beginning of a new chapter. "
