Message in bottle finally back

A Rockingham man has been reunited with a childhood message in a bottle he cast to sea in Augusta almost 15 years ago.

Then 10-year-old Aaron Roberts was holidaying with his grandparents in Augusta when he threw a message in a bottle out to sea at Ring Bolt Bay.

In the letter, he asked its recipient to get in touch with him to begin possible pen pal correspondence.

Little did Aaron, who is now 25, realise it would take almost 15 years for him to be reunited with his juvenile scribblings.

The bottle travelled around 95km and took 12 months to reach the hands of Rodney Bond, who was camping on Jasper Beach, south of Augusta.

‘‘I had walked about four kilometres up the beach when I found the bottle, it was hidden among a heap of seaweed and rubbish,’’ he said.

MrBond took the bottle back to his Donnybrook home and put it among his possessions and it gathered dust for 14 years, until two weeks ago.

‘‘I was shifting my belongings to move house, and my friend Beth asked me, ‘What are are you going to do with that bottle?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know,’ so we opened it and read it, and she said, ‘Do you want me to help you find this person?’’’ he said.

‘‘It only took about aweek to get in contact with Aaron’s grandfather Jim, and we were able to send a message back to him with the bottle,’’ he said.

Mr Roberts said he was very surprised to hear back about the bottle.

‘‘I was gobsmacked when I found out,’’ he said.

Mr Bond said he was delighted to reunite Mr Roberts with his bottle.

‘‘I was really rapt that we were able to find him,’’ Mr Bond said.

Mr Roberts plans to take his six-year-old daughter Bailee to Denham at Easter so that she can write her own message and put it in a bottle, and hopefully receive a message of her own back some day.