He asked his daughter to text him when she got to Goulburn and again on arrival in Sydney.

The North Albury postman watched the news that night and saw a “terrible” car accident north of Tarcutta.

He knew that someone had died.

The phone rang.

His eldest daughter asked if he knew anything about the accident.

He phoned the family of the boy his daughter Yasmin was travelling with — only then did the shock set in.

Yesterday in a family home on a lifestyle block near Albury racecourse, the father of the first-year university student was fighting back tears, still coming to grips his daughter’s death.

“She had her whole life in front of her and now she is gone,” he said.

“It is just so hard, memories keep coming back.

“I didn’t believe it, I rang the young fellow’s parents and his sister answered the phone and said she was sorry.

“I knew then, I just knew.

“An hour later the police came around and I told them I knew.”

Yasmin Duncan, 18, had dreamed of becoming a marine biologist and was enrolled at Charles Sturt University.

She had worked two jobs in a gap year after finishing year 12 at Murray High School.

The Thurgoona netballer didn’t go out in orientation week — she wanted to focus on her university studies.

On Friday she died after the vehicle in which she was a passenger collided with a B-double on the Hume Highway just before 3pm.

Her friend Daniel Shiels was the driver of the early model Holden Torana and suffered spinal injuries in the collision.

The Table Top man, in his early 20s, has been transferred to a hospital in Canberra.

He is expected to make a full recovery.

The Tumbarumba football coach said Yasmin was a father’s dream.

“She gave 100 per cent all the time, she’d doubt whether she was good enough but time after time she proved people wrong, prove herself wrong,” Mr Duncan said.