Message in a bottle back in Coromandel

A boy found a message in a bottle washed up on a Coromandel beach 25 years after a girl threw it into the ocean from the same spot.

Kylie Tatham-Tahere, from Tokoroa, was 8 when she threw the bottle into the sea from Cooks Beach. Tom Hussona, 8, from Auckland, found it on Christmas Day last year.

His mother Erica said the bottle was intact but the lid had rusted and water had got in.

"The message was just in hundreds of bits," she told the Waikato Times. "The paper was so delicate ... we had to try to get between the folds and unravel it with toothpicks."

They managed to read Ms Tatham-Tahere's name and tracked her down through the Old Friends website.

Ms Tatham-Tahere said she was "blown away" when she heard from Ms Hussona.

Tom has also released his own message in a bottle with a wax sealed cork to stop any water getting in.

- NZPA