A German man is sending an SOS to New Zealand about a message in a bottle which washed up after seven years on the far side of the world.
Seven years ago Christian Gogos' kids and their friends threw a message in a bottle into the Rhine River from the land-locked city of Bonn, famously known as the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven in 1770.
From there it found its way to the North Sea, probably through the Dutch delta and port city of Rotterdam, where the main part of the river ends.
How it reached New Zealand is anyone's guess, but it did. This week Gogos got a letter from Auckland to say the bottle had been found and a copy of the message.
"It has travelled a long way!" said the letter, signed by Scott, Lea and Alice Joy from Auckland.
