Cat goes on wild 3800km ride

Meet Clyde, the Australian cat who survived a miraculous and mysterious odyssey of more than three years and 3800km that took him from Tasmania to Mt Isa. The moggy wandered into Cloncurry Hospital about four months ago, on the fringe of the dry western plains about 120km east of Mt Isa. Nobody knew where he was from or how he got there.

Now his owners in southern Tasmania are about to be reunited with their beloved cat, three years after he vanished without a trace. When the purebred himalayan turned up at Cloncurry Hospital, a nurse adopted him. But last week she was offered a transfer, leaving Clyde without a home.

She took him to local vet Donna Weber, who scanned him in the hope of finding a microchip. There was a chip and it led them to Clyde's owners in Tasmania's cold and drizzly Derwent Valley.



How he ended up in a mining town in the drought-ridden heart of western Queensland so far from his home is a mind-boggling mystery. "We don't know where he came from but we knew a cat like that just doesn't come from around these parts," Dr Weber said.

Clyde's owner Katrina Phillips was moved to tears when she got the call last week that Clyde was alive and well in Queensland. "We just can't believe he's alive, it's just unbelievable and it's so emotional," Ms Phillips said.

Ms Phillips, ironically a council animal control officer responsible for the micro-chipping of local pets, believes Clyde could have been stolen by tourists staying nearby.