Beach patrol volunteer Rosalind Evans finds secret note hidden inside bottle washed ashore in Victoria’s southwest

A Warrnambool woman made a little girl’s dream come true when she found a sweet note written by a young girl a decade ago. Watch the video.

A beach clean-up volunteer made a surprising discovery when she picked up a plastic bottle with a decade-old note hidden inside after it washed ashore a Portland beach.

Rosalind Evans was out on beach cleaning patrol when she made the discovery at the Fitzroy River estuary, east of Portland, on March 26.

“We were doing an organised litter pick up along the beach there and it was kind of in the dunes between the beach and the river mouth — there were quite a lot of plastic bottles that were kind of wedged underneath plants and along the area,” Ms Evans said.

“It’s only a very narrow strip of dune lines in between so it would’ve been either swept in from the ocean or it’s floated down the river and been blown into the dunes.”

The note was written by Melbourne resident Ines Zepcan 10 years ago.

“My name is Ines Zepcan, I am eight years old, whoever finds this bottle will have good luck for life from me and my family,” the note read.

Ms Zepcan, who is now 18, told The Warrnambool News she threw the bottle into the water off the main pier in Portland during the school holidays 10 years ago.

During the last decade it travelled about 80km from Portland to Warrnambool.

Her sister had also written a note and thrown it into the ocean on the same day, but it has not yet been found.

Rosalind Evans discovered the plastic bottle with the hidden secret note inside of it while she was cleaning up a beach near Portland. Picture: Supplied

Ms Evans said she did not realise at first that the bottle had a note inside, but the excitement built for the volunteer group when they realised.

“It was one of the day’s most interesting finds with the group collection we were doing — I just thought it was some rolled up paper but when I unravelled it, it was like some golden ticket I suppose — it was a bit of fun,” Ms Evans said.

“We didn’t know how long the bottle had been there or anything about the girl who wrote it until my friend Colleen Hughson tracked her down.

“We got the backstory with the girl now being 18. She was on a holiday with her sister in Portland — and being an innocent young girl it’s a bit exciting isn’t it, to throw a message in the water and see what happens with it?”

Beach clean-up volunteer Rosalind Evans found the note in a plastic bottle near the Fitzroy River estuary. Picture: Supplied

The letter was written by an eight-year-old girl named Ines Zepcan about 10 years ago and Ms Zepcan is now 18 years old. Picture: Supplied

Ms Evans and Ms Zepcan have not yet met since the discovery of the letter.

Ms Zepcan and her family were “shocked” when Colleen Hughes reached out to her on Instagram to tell her the team had found her note.

When she and her sister wrote the notes they imagined somebody would find them when they were “really old”.

“It’s definitely crazy — it’s funny that something I did when I was eight is causing something like a stir now which is great in a way and also really out of nowhere,” Ms Zepcan said.

“I remember one day I was wanting to hear if someone found it.”

Melbourne resident Ines Zepcan was only eight years old when she sent off her note with good intentions out to sea in Portland 10 years ago, being found in 2023 by beach patrol volunteer Rosalind Evans. Picture: Supplied

She added that her family keenly remembered the holiday and taking her dad’s chocolate wrapper to write on.

Ms Zepcan said the discovery of her note and the bottle it was concealed in had raised positive discussions about the importance of the environment.

“My eight-year-old self was obviously not as environmentally conscious as I am now,” Ms Zepcan said.

“It’s definitely good these groups are advocating against these plastic bottles because they can outlive people.

“It was good the bottle was found by a beach patrol group otherwise who knows how long it might have stayed there.”

Ms Evans still has the bottle with the message inside of it, and although it was an interesting find, she agreed that it showed how long plastic could survive in the elements.

“It brings home to you the pollution level of plastic — it does not break down. That bottle has been battered by the ocean and been at mercy of the elements for 10 years and it was cracked but it was barely degraded in all that time — it’s completely in tact,” she said.

She said the patrol team worked hard on a day-to-day basis to clean up the environment but it was everybody’s responsibility.

The Beach Patrol group has encouraged anyone interested in helping to clean the environment to join their own patrol team or another local team.