Music Festival's Stolen Dinosaur Found & Returned After Two Years

A one-and-a-half-metre-tall statue of a velociraptor that was stolen from the 2014 Big Pineapple Music Festival, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, has been returned to police after a two-year odyssey that ended high up on Mount Coolum.

As ABC reports, the dinosaur — affectionately known as "Bruce" — was returned to its owners, Mitchell Brookes and Maxim Claes, this week after two hikers — Sunshine Coast locals Madison Bothe and Julia Blake — came across the statue sitting on the Mt Coolum trail about 7.30am on Tuesday.

A note was taped to it explaining that Bruce had "escaped from Kenilworth" in 2014 (the letter actually says 2013 but its recollection is off) and "want[s] to go home". 

"I have seen & been through some shit," the letter read. "Dog fights, cage fights, chicken fights, horse races, day races & emu races, all across NT, Roma, Darwin, Cairns, Port Headland [sic]. I've had enough..."

The statue was a fixture of the 2014 event's Playground Safari stage, and was stolen at some point around the pack-down, its tail being left behind in the process. Two years on, it's also lost an eye and an arm, but is otherwise in relatively good condition.

Bothe told the ABC she'd climbed the mountain the previous afternoon "to catch the sunset" and the statue was not there, meaning it had been placed in position at some stage between her earlier trek and hitting the mountain the next morning with Blake. 

The pair of hikers ultimately walked the "awkward" figure down the mountain, with assistance from a passer-by named Julie, before handing it over at the Coolum station to Sunshine Coast police, who Bothe says "thought it was a bit of a joke" at first before being convinced by the very real Bruce sitting in the women's car.

Sunshine Coast Police have since released a statement describing the Coolum officers as "rapt" to have returned the dinosaur to Brookes and Claes, despite earlier shock that the walkers had "let the velociraptor join their pack halfway up the Mt Coolum trail".

Bruce is now recovering ahead of his planned return to Big Pineapple next year. 

"At this stage we'll be focusing on his rehabilitation," Brookes told Sunshine Coast Daily. "Once he is back on his feet he'll be performing at next year's Big Pineapple Music Festival."

Just, please, don't steal him this time.