As long-distance journeys go for pets, this one's pretty incredible.

A stray cat was picked up by Armagh Cats Protection and checked into their care centre. When its microchip was scanned, it revealed two incredible things.

Firstly, that the cat was 25 years old, when the average expectancy of a cat is 15 to 17 years.

And secondly, the cat was Australian.

The story garnered a huge amount of local attention, both to how the cat managed to survive that time and, more pointedly, how an Australian cat wound up in Northern Ireland.

After a great detail of research by Armagh Cats Protection, the mystery was eventually solved.

Its owners were also globetrotters themselves and had, it appears, incorrectly registered the cat in 1999, not 1989.

They had left the feline, named Ozzie by its rescuers, with friends before leaving the country to continue on somewhere else.

They've since been contacted and will soon be reunited with the cat.

 

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