A fundraising balloon, released at a village fete in the UK, has been found by a family in Norway, more than 600 miles from home. The blue balloon was sent on its long journey from North Somerset by 10-year-old Beccy Filer in a bid to raise money to buy equipment for her school.

Just a day later, an unidentified floating object was spotted at Farsund on Norway’s south coast by the Oyri family, who have a holiday cabin in the area. Seeing that it was about to fall into the sea, the family grabbed their boat and went out to investigate.

“It was a beautiful morning with no breeze. As the children were getting dressed we could see it gently falling down from the sky,” said Vibeke Oyri in a report by the BBC. “We could see something attached underneath and our kids were very curious so we decided to take the boat out about 200m from the shore to investigate. It was a stroke of luck we got to it quickly otherwise the note would have been unreadable,” she added.

On the tag were Beccy’s address and a message reading: “When you get this, please send it back.” A week later a letter was received in Somerset, much to the Filer’s surprise.

“We’d entered the balloon race a while back and hadn’t thought anymore about it, said Beccy’s mother Tanya Filer.”When the letter arrived I asked her if she’d been writing to a pen friend.”

“When she opened it she said ‘mummy my balloon’s got to Norway’. I said ‘don’t be so ridiculous.’ Then she showed me the letter. Everyone thought the winning balloon had been found in Peterborough but we think this is the winner now,” she added.