Young British girl’s message in a bottle reaches Australian shores

Five months ago, 4-year-old Jasmine Hudson launched a message in a bottle off the shores of Bournemouth, England.

She hoped the message would reach her aunt across the English Channel in Guernsey.

On September 13th, that bottle arrived in Australia.

Barbara Richards, 58, found the bottle in seaweed on Adelaide's Largs Bay beach, more than 16,000 kilometres from its origin.

"I was just so excited when I found it because how many of us dream of finding a message on a beach?" Richards told Adelaide Now.

"I had to wait until I got home (to open it) because we had to use a corkscrew to get (the message) out, and it was sealed with hot wax I was jumping around. I was so excited."

The note inside, since framed and photocopied, came from a message-in-a-bottle kit:

"Ahoy, be it known Jasmine Hudson set this adrift on April 10, 2012."

Richards wrote to the little girl, and shared with her the story of the bottle's discovery.

Read Richards' entire letter at the Daily Mail.

"Never in our wildest dreams did we ever think it would get all the way to Australia," Jasmine's mother, Louise, told the Daily Mail.

"I was really excited when I got a letter from Australia. I had forgotten I had thrown the message in the sea. I thought it might have been eaten by a shark," Jasmine told the Tamworth Herald.

Richards and Jasmine are now in contact online.

Jasmine plans to send another message in a bottle soon — and hopes it reaches Brazil this time, ITV Central reported.