Australian soldier's message in a bottle from 1916 found on beach

More than a century after an Australian soldier wrote a letter to his mother as he sailed to war and his death, it has been discovered in a bottle washed up on a remote beach.

- Australian Associated Press

Pte Malcolm Alexander Neville's lighthearted note, penned on 15 August 1916, was found on Wharton beach, about 750km southeast of Perth.

"Having a real good time," the letter said. "Food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal, which we buried at sea."

Neville, who was killed in action in France in April 1917 when he was 28, had departed Adelaide in a troopship three days before writing the letter.