‘It’s not all palm trees’: what life on a private island is really like

theguardian.com:

“It’s not all palm trees and white sand,” Craig Beckey says, shortly after arriving at his own private island.

As the pandemic hit, the 56-year-old photographer heard about Worthington Island, a 30-minute boat ride from Gladstone in Queensland, through a morning television program. He made an appointment for a tour and in 2021 Beckey bought the island for $385,000.

“I walked around and that afternoon I made an offer,” he says. “I was suddenly like ‘oh shit, I just bought an island’.”

He loves to crack a beer, crank some tunes, and go fishing. But it isn’t exactly glamorous – life on the island involves battling mozzies and midges, and his shed dwelling is effectively glamping, he says.

“I call it a shack, a nine-metre-by-four-metre timber floor, timber frame, off-grid shed with an awning.

“I’ve got solar, I’ve got wind energy, generators, gas cooking. I can run a fridge, I can make my own ice, there’s a pot belly stove.”

And with no jetty, he moors his boat and kayaks in, or parks it in the mangroves.

The market for private islands took off when Covid-19 struck, and buzz around isolated idylls escalated again last week with the news Poole Island in the Whitsundays was back on the market for less than $1m.

Media coverage talked up the “stunning” tropical getaway – an exclusive island going for less than the average house in Sydney.

The agent, Private Islands Online Australia director Richard Vanhoff, said the location, views and swimming pool were all stunning, but it would take about $100,000 to make Poole Island habitable.

“It will cost you a bit of money moving into Poole. It’s attracted some vagrants, some Robinson Crusoes, who left the windows and doors open. They had a campfire out front, left the windows open and we had