The missing teddy had been featured on fliers distributed by the family in Cooranbong, and on Facebook, and was the subject of a multy-agency investigation. 

The family, who asked not to be identified, said the teddy named White Bear had been a gift for their 17-year-old daughter on the occasion of her birth.

“Our daughter has used White Bear as a pillow ever since,” the teen’s mother said.

The trouble started when the family travelled to South Australia to visit relatives last November, and White Bear was accidently left behind.

So the relatives in South Australia put White Bear in a package and posted him back to Cooranbong. But they made a mistake when addressing the parcel.

“They got one of the digits for our house number wrong,” the mother said.

That started a series of phone calls between the family and Australia Post as efforts were ramped up to retrieve the bear.

“Australia Post told us that they had tried to retrieve the parcel, but they couldn’t. We ran out of options with Australia Post, so we went to the [Postal Industry] Ombudsman,” the mother said.

“Then we assumed that the parcel had been stolen from the other letterbox, so we reported the matter to police.”

There was relief all round, however, when Australia Post recently contacted the family to report that they had the parcel and were coming over to hand-deliver it.

A spokesperson for Australia Post said it delivered the parcel as addressed.

 “As soon as we were notified that this parcel had been incorrectly addressed by the sender, we commenced recovery efforts,” they said.

“We contacted the recipient who the parcel was originally delivered to several times and were eventually able to recover the parcel.”

The mother said there was much rejoicing in the house when White Bear was returned.

The mother said she was grateful for Australia Post’s perseverance, and for the unintended recipient’s role in helping White Bear to find his way home.

“It’s a story of human error and kindness,” she said.