Woman finds message in a bottle washed up on Tasmanian beach

A woman has found a message in a bottle washed up on a beach with a sealed note inside believed to be from a traveller overseas.

A message in a bottle believed to have travelled thousands of kilometres in the freezing ocean for more than four years has been discovered on a beach in Tasmania.

The wine bottle, which was firmly sealed with a cork, was discovered on the shore of Macquarie Island in Tasmania, where a subantarctic research base operates its research program.

Stella, a ranger from Tasmania Parks and Wildlife, discovered the bottle and noticed its cork was still intact, “quickly realising it was no ordinary debris”, according to a post from the Australian Antarctic Division on Facebook on Friday.

Inside she noticed a carefully rolled up note that had been protected from the water.

Stella carefully extracted the note inside the bottle using forceps but once unrolling it realised it contained a blank page.

But the group persevered and used a pencil to shade over the note, which revealed a partial message.

The bottle was found on the shore of Macquarie Island.

Stella found the bottle on a beach in Tasmania.

This is what the team discovered written on the note:

“Hi, my name is …

“I am from Poland (Europe). I am during a trip to Bouvet Island.

“Today is April 6th 2015. If you find this message, send email. My email address is ‘JUDBAS@ … PL’.”

The rangers work to reveal the message. Picture: antarctica.gov.au

Picture: antarctica.gov.au

The message inside the bottle.

A Google Maps image shows the distance from Bouvet Island to Macquarie Island, Tasmania.

“The internet confirms that a polar cruise ship had travelled to Bouvet Island, a Norwegian volcanic island in the Southern Ocean, southwest of Cape Town, during April 2015,” the team wrote on the post, along with pictures of the discovery.

“But as to who wrote the message in a bottle and dropped it in the ocean – the mystery remains.”

Macquarie Island is approximately halfway between Australia and Antarctica.