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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2013 Messages in a bottle written by two Australian soldiers a few days into their voyage to the battlefields of France during World War I have been found more than a century later on Australia\u00b4s coast.<\/p>\n
The Brown family found the Schweppes-brand bottle just above the waterline at Wharton Beach near Esperance in Western Australia state on Oct. 9, Deb Brown said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Her husband Peter and daughter Felicity made the find during one of the family\u00b4s regular quad bike expeditions to clear the beach of trash.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do a lot of cleaning up on our beaches and so would never go past a piece of rubbish. So this little bottle was lying there waiting to be picked up,\u201d Deb Brown said.<\/p>\n
Inside the clear, thick glass were cheerful letters written in pencil by Privates Malcolm Neville, 27, and William Harley, 37, dated Aug. 15, 1916.<\/p>\n
Their troop ship HMAT A70 Ballarat had left the South Australia state capital Adelaide to the east on Aug. 12 of that year on the long journey to the other side of the world where its soldiers would reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on Europe\u00b4s Western Front.
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\nNeville wrote to his mother he was \u201chaving a real good time, food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal which we buried at sea.\u201d<\/p>\nThe ship was \u201cheaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry,\u201d Neville wrote, using a now faded Australian colloquialism meaning very happy.<\/p>\n
Neville wrote that he and his comrades were, \u201cSomewhere at Sea.\u201d Harley wrote that they were, \u201cSomewhere in the Bight,\u201d referring to the Great Australian Bight. That\u00b4s an enormous open bay that begins east of Adelaide and extends to Esperance on the western edge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n