Eddie had a tag with a name and cellphone number on it.
"I rang the number and said to the woman, 'I've got your cat, Eddie, do you want to come and pick him up?'"
The owner said she could not come straight away but asked for the address.
"When I said Ballantyne Rd she asked me whereabouts in Dunedin was that? I said, we're in Wanaka."
Eddie's owner, Di Strang, said she guessed immediately what had happened.
She rang the removal company to confirm the truck had driven to Wanaka that night.
"I said, 'You took my cat', and they said, 'We don't transport cats', and I said, 'I know - that's the problem'."
Strang said after failing to find someone who could bring Eddie back to Dunedin she drove the 275km from Dunedin to Wanaka and picked up the wayward moggie from VetEnt Wanaka, where he was being minded.
''He was very happy to see me, stretching out his paws and purring madly.''
Strang said despite Eddie's unexpected road trip, she has no plans to curtail his curiosity or penchant for sleeping in cars.
''He originally came from Gore, so he has a bit of spirit,'' she said.
Strang drove Eddie back to Dunedin yesterday afternoon to be reunited with her husband, three children and their other family cat, which she described as a couch potato that never went anywhere.
