Pet Tortoise Miraculously Returned To Owners After A Year On The ‘Run’, Guess How Far He Got?

A pet tortoise who has been missing from his family home for over a year has been found a mere mile away from his owners on the other side of one of the UK’s busiest rail lines.

Tortoises are not exactly famed for their athletic ability, so it’s no surprise that in over a year on the “run,” Andy-Bob the tortoise only managed to cover the distance of one solitary mile.

What is miraculous about the adventurous tortoise’s story is that the heavyweight hardcase managed to survive both the great outdoors and the UK’s notoriously bad weather for a whole year.

The intrepid tortoise trekked through streams and journeyed through fields of livestock in his frantic bid for freedom, but his great adventure has now come to an end and Andy has been returned to his delighted owner.

Seven-year-old Ella Holland was heartbroken when Andy-Bob made like Houdini and vanished from her garden in Brunton, Northumberland, last year.

Ella was given Andy-Bob as a present from Father Christmas when she was just 3 years old and used to take the friendly tortoise for walks in the garden. So after she found Andy-Bob had dug under his cage and gone missing, she was devastated.

After a period of mourning, Ella gave Andy-Bob the tortoise up for dead, so just imagine her delight when the wandering reptile was returned to the comfort of hearth and home.

Andy-Bob the free-spirited tortoise was found along the side of a road by a family friend who wondered just why the mischievous creature was a mile away from his cage.

It is thought to get to his final destination, Andy-Bob, who has a top speed of around 0.3 mph — around ten times slower than the average human — would have had to cross the main East Coast rail line where trains thunder past each day, every eight minutes, at 125 mph.

There’s also speculation that the 5-year-old tortoise somehow made his way unscathed through three fields of cows and sheep.

Yahoo! News reported that Ella’s dad Mick explained:

“That tortoise could tell some stories. I honestly presumed he was dead. Five yards away from his pen there is a stream and I thought he had just been washed away. It’s remarkable. All the fields he crossed had cattle and sheep in them. And of course there was the winter, but thankfully that was mild.”

Though he has lost a little weight, Andy-Bobthe tortoise is now said to be back in the garden and enjoying life as a family pet.