Derbyshire girl's delight as message in a bottle washes up in Norway

The bottle was found on a beach about 125 miles (201 km) south of Norwegian capital Oslo

A 10-year-old girl who sent a message in a bottle out to sea during a family holiday said she was "delighted" after it turned up on a beach in Norway.

Lilly, from land-locked Long Eaton in Derbyshire, cast her hopeful letter written on kitchen paper off the coast while on a family holiday in north-east England in July.

The wave-tossed missive made land on the other side of the North Sea, with a woman finding it last week.

Lilly said she loved receiving a reply.

She and her mother learned of the fate of the bottle, which she launched from Chapel St Leonards in Lincolnshire, after a friend of the woman who found it tracked them down via a community Facebook group.

Lilly and her mother said they were excited to hear their message had been found

She said it was "quite amazing" the bottle - which washed up on a beach near Kragerø, about 125 miles (201 km) south of Norwegian capital Oslo - was not damaged, with the message only sent on the last day of the family break.

"I think it was just something to do," she said.

"The arcades were shut, and there was nothing really to do, so I just thought 'why don't we put a bottle in the water and see where it goes?'"

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Her mother Claire said she was thrilled her daughter's message - which launched onto the waves after several failed attempts - had found a response.

"It just feels really exciting," she said.

"Nothing much else has been going on, so it's quite nice to have a bit of good news."

Harald Christiansen, who tracked down the pair on behalf of his friend, said it demonstrated "the power of internet".

Common to both intrepid tourists and stranded sailors, sealing letters in waterproof bottles and launching them into the sea has a centuries-old tradition.

While some epistles receive near-instant replies, many messages can bob around the world's tides for much longer, with one bottle turning up on an Australian beach more than 130 years after it was thrown into the sea.

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