Stuffed bunny found on Oak Bay beach reunited with Australian girl

OAK BAY, B.C. -

Gareth Gaudin never imagined that he'd make a connection across the ocean when he made an unexpected discovery on the beach.

“The poor thing looked cold, so I went to grab it,” Gareth recalls. “And my family said don’t touch it. It could be a puppy’s filthy stuffy.”

It was a bunny stuffy, slumped on a stump.

“If it's a puppy's, that’s even more reason to grab it!” Gareth responded.

Although the beach was empty of pets or people, Gareth’s mind was full of possible ways to solve the mystery and reunite the rabbit with its owner.

He pulled out his phone and started posing the bunny for pictures.

“Propping her up with the sunset behind her was the least I could do for her dignity and well-being,” Gareth says before showing photos of the bunny with its legs crossed, gazing across the ocean.

Then the professional artist created a series of cartoons, showing where the bunny was found, how it must be feeling, and a finally a plea for help.

“Let's find a home for it,” Gareth said. “We need a miracle.”

Gareth shared the images on social media before the post eventually reached a family who had been visiting from Australia.

“Canadians are extremely friendly and polite,” Andrew Johnson says via Zoom from Sydney.

Andrew says his daughter, Violet, had been burying her brother in the sand before leaving the beach in tears because the driftwood she’d also been playing with had floated away.

“And she needed her bunny to comfort her.”

Andrew says he pulled over the car to look for the stuffy but couldn’t find it. “I said, ‘Oh no! Where’s bunny?!'”

It was the first time since Violet had been born that the two-and-a-half-year-old had been separated from the bunny she’d named Flopsy.

“We didn’t think we'd ever see the bunny again,” Andrew says.

So when they saw that Flopsy had been found — and has now made the long journey back home to Australia — they couldn’t be more grateful that Gareth cared for it so creatively in Canada.

“It was beautiful,” Andrew says as Violet beams, holding her bunny up to the camera. “She was very, very excited.”

And knowing that Violet and Flopsy have reunited on the other side of the world has made Gareth feel over the moon.

“I hope Flopsy and [Violet] have a great life together,” Gareth says. “And tell the story often.”

A story that spans the sea, that Violet starts telling simply: “It was lost at the beach,” the girl says, before smiling. “And we're finding it!”

It's a story that reminds us, when all feels lost, to never give up hope of finding what we're looking for.