Weeks of research traced the historic note back to 19th century Germany. Mrs Illman and her husband Kym placed the note in an oven to dry it out before unravelling it to reveal a set of coordinates and a date of 12 June 1886. The letters "aula" in a naming field, they thought might mean the ship was called Paula.

Days later, the couple received confirmation from a curator of maritime archaeology at the Western Australian Museum that a boat named Paula was listed in an 1883 Lloyds Register, with a home port of Marseille. Further evidence was provided by the German Maritime and Hydrographic Agency, who confirmed the wording and printing were identical to messages held in their archives for the year 1886.

The bottle - thought to have originally held gin - was thrown overboard alongside many others during a decades-long research project to produce drift maps. According to archives, the last one to have been found was picked up in Denmark in January 1934 - and it was a match for the format of the one found on the Australian coast.

"To think that this bottle has not been touched for nearly 132 years and is in perfect condition, despite the elements, beggars belief." said Mrs Illman.