Missing Cambridge cat turns up 630km away on Canterbury farm

A cat missing from a Cambridge property for around a year has been found living on a North Canterbury farm 630km away after a microchip scan reunited her with her owner.

The tortoiseshell cat, since renamed Goldie, first appeared as a stray on Lee Henderson's property on the outskirts of Amberley.

"At first I thought she was the neighbour's cat and I shooed her away a few times," she said.

When a Facebook post asking if anyone recognised the feline went unanswered, Henderson took her to the vet to be scanned for a microchip — revealing the cat was registered more than 630km away in Cambridge, Waikato.

"It was from Cambridge, and we were like, Cambridge! And the whole vet clinic sort of blew up," Henderson said.

The microchip led back to the cat's owner, Georgia Nugent-O'Leary, who lives near Lake Karapiro. She had taken the cat in as a stray in 2022 and named her Mum Cat, though she went missing early last year.

"I hadn't given up all hope, but I was pretty close. After a year I thought the worst had happened," she said.

News the cat had turned up alive on the other side of Cook Strait came as a shock.

"I think it was just the most bizarre phone call to receive."

Henderson said the two women cried on the phone to each other.

"She couldn't believe it, we were both crying. It was just a golden moment."

Exactly how the cat travelled more than half the length of the country remains a mystery, though the pair have discussed a few possibilities.

Nugent O'Leary pointed to a business near her Cambridge property that deals in animal bedding and pine shavings.

"It's possible she might have jumped on a truck at some point, and Lee had said that she's had trucks stop a couple of blocks from where she is as well," she said.

"Really, that's the part we don't know — I'm A and Lee is B, and we don't know the in-between."

Henderson floated another theory — that the cat may have stowed away on a rowing trailer, given Nugent O'Leary's background as an Olympic rower.

"It's quite possible she's hopped on a rowing skiff," Henderson said. "She might have had a home in between somewhere, but she's made her way here."

Nugent-O'Leary is now caring for two of the cat's kittens in Cambridge along with her male partner Tom Cat.

Given the cat had already settled well into life on Henderson's farm, and Nugent O'Leary still had three cats to look after, the pair agreed she should stay in Canterbury for good, rather than Henderson's offer to fly her home.

"I said to Lee that cats do choose their owners, and if you want to have her, you're more than welcome to, and she leapt at the chance, which was awesome," Nugent-O'Leary said.

Henderson, who had been looking for a new mouser after her older cat became partly blind and deaf, renamed the cat Goldie.

"I have read that cats do bring good luck and good fortune, so she didn't bring a lotto ticket, but she's just brought a golden moment to us," she said.

Goldie has since settled into life on the Amberley farm, spending much of her time in a cat basket in the laundry, though she remains wary of strangers.

"Somehow she's made it very safely to my little farmlet, and she's really happy at her forever home."