Wardens on the Australian island Macquarie have found a letter in a bottle, posted by a Dutch sailor two years previously close to Cape Horn.

Oceanographer Leo Maas of the Dutch institute for sea research NIOZ estimates the bottle has travelled more than 18,600 kilometres via the ocean current around Antartica to reach its destination.

The bottle was found during a clean up on the west coast of the island.

An address left in the bottle allowed them to trace the sailors, who had put it and a dollar for postage overboard on September 21, 2012.

They had expected the bottle to wash up on an Atlantic coast.

Maas says the bottle could have taken a shorter route to reach Australia but that would have meant going against the current.