Plenty of Coochiemudlo Islanders will tell you we have the best views in Queensland, but don’t just take our word for it - the vistas we experience as we cross the channel to the mainland are the same that regularly draw international film producers to the region.
With unlimited views to the northern horizon, the waters off Brisbane Bayside’s seaboard stand in for such remote and magical places as the oceans of Narnia and the remote Caribbean Sea.
Calmer and shallower than the open waters of the coastline, Moreton Bay is ideal for on-water film crews.
In 2009, the third installment of the Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, was partially filmed on a full-scale set of the dragon-themed ship in C.S. Lewis’s story, built on the shoreline at nearby Cleveland Point.
2013 saw actor-director Angeline Jolie spend weeks on the waters off Peel Island, shooting her World War II drama Unbroken. The film tells the story of Lou Zamperini, a war hero and former track star who spent weeks adrift in the Pacific Ocean in 1943.
And throughout 2015 locals were treated to regular sightings of Johnny Depp in costume as Captain Jack Sparrow while filming location scenes for Pirates of the Caribbean 5 in the waters of South Moreton Bay.
Although you won’t be bothered by too many film crews on Coochiemudlo’s Main, Norfolk or Morwong Beaches, you too can capture the magic.
Stay a couple of nights midweek and you’ll find the location is yours most times of day, just a stroll from any number of holiday homes.
You’ll feel like you’ve got free tickets to the dress circle of your own Hollywood film.
Michael Burge is an author, artist and publisher who lives on Coochiemudlo Island. Check out his website.