Bay Area girls' message in bottle sent from Fiji found in Australia 8 years later

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (KGO) -- A group of hikers in Australia recently made an incredible discovery. While on a beach cleanup, they stumbled upon a message in a bottle that had been sent eight years ago. The message was sent by Bay Area locals who were on vacation in Fiji.

In a video posted on Facebook the hikers, from Townsville in Queensland, Australia, were amazed when they opened the bottle.

"It's like every childhood sort of fantasy fairy tale sort of thing. Send a message away and someone actually reads it," said Sandra Lamari, with the Townsville Hike and Explore group.

The discovery happened during a beach cleanup.

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"During our walk when we were all picking up bottles, there were about 20 hikers on the group with us. A gentleman picked up a bottle and it had a message in it," Lamari explained.

"We opened it up. It was a little bit difficult to open. And it was a note. And I read it out to the group," said Syl Caruso, also from the group, who read its contents in the video, "Dear reader, we wrote this note because we heard so many stories about doing this."

The note continued to explain that the writers were leaving their resort in Fiji and asked the reader to write back to their Sunnyvale address. It was signed in July of 2016, by three girls: Savannah, Kate, and Janice - though no last names were provided.

Initially, the hikers tried to contact the women but discovered they no longer lived at the listed Sunnyvale address. However, the story quickly got attention in Australia, which eventually led to the original senders hearing about their note's discovery.

"We've since spoken to Janice earlier today via radio locally here in Townsville. So it's been quite exciting actually finding the owners of the letter," said Susie Bidgood of the Townsville Hike and Explore group.

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Lamari said the ladies who had sent the note those eight years go had often wondered what had become of it. "They were all there on holiday in August, and then they all thought to themselves, 'I wonder what happened to that bottle that we sent off,'" added Lamari.

Plans are now underway to reunite the note with Savannah, Kate, and Janice.

"We're going to include a couple of the newspaper clippings that we've had from our local newspaper and a few photos as well of our group," Bidgood shared.

Although the Townsville group will soon part with the note, the memory of their unique discovery will stay with them.

"Super excited that it's come this far all the way from Fiji. And now to have made contact, it's just been, really epic," Caruso said.