HEI HEI MAN WALKS COUNTDOWN TROLLEY 6KM HOME, DECLARED LOCAL HERO BY THREE PEOPLE

A Hei Hei resident has been widely praised by at least three people on a suburban Facebook page after returning a Countdown shopping trolley on foot from a location he described as "somewhere past the Tower Junction roundabout, give or take".

The trolley, believed to have been AWOL from its home store for a period of no less than four months, was spotted by Kelvin Doubleday, 58, wedged in a drain near a bus stop. Mr Doubleday, who does not own a car and was on his way back from a medical appointment, elected to walk the trolley the remaining six kilometres to Hei Hei rather than, in his words, "leave the poor bugger there".

"I just thought, that's someone's trolley, that is," Mr Doubleday told this reporter. "Wheels were buggered. One of them went sideways the whole way. Took me an hour and forty."

A neighbour, Raewyn Fitchett, described the act as "honestly the nicest thing that's happened on this street since the water went back on". A second neighbour said she had assumed Mr Doubleday had simply acquired the trolley for personal use, which she noted "a lot of them round here do".

A Countdown spokesperson, contacted for comment, confirmed the trolley had been logged as missing in June and would be returned to active duty pending a wheel inspection. The spokesperson declined to offer Mr Doubleday a reward, citing "policy", but did suggest he was welcome to shop there.

Mr Doubleday, asked whether he would do it again, said he probably would, but that next time he'd bring a bungee cord for the wheel. The trolley remains, at time of filing, chained to a bike rack outside the Hei Hei dairy pending collection.