Sea Patrol producers selling beloved Mission Beach penthouse

A hunt for the perfect location to film hit TV show Sea Patrol led Hal and Di McElroy to buying a home in North Queensland.

“It turned out to be a marvellously magical moment,” McElroy says.

Mission Beach ticked all their production boxes: close to Cairns, they could find accommodation for 160 cast and crew members, and importantly had sheltered-enough water – thanks to nearby Dunk Island – for them to film the show.

“We shot here for five years, and two years in my wife said, ‘You know what, I really like it here’,” McElroy says.

So the Sydney couple bought a two-storey penthouse off the plan and moved in just before shooting the final season of Sea Patrol.

However, after living in the home part-time for a while and full-time for a year, the couple have reluctantly decided to sell, listing their four-bedroom, four bathroom penthouse for $1.45 million.

“We’ve got two grandchildren in America – our daughters married Americans – and we don’t see enough of them because of the apartment here, so we very reluctantly put it on the market,” McElroy says.

“It’s going to be a real wrench, but family’s got the strongest call for us, and to be honest we’ve been putting it off – but now’s the time.”

While the couple look forward to spending much more time with their young grandchildren, McElroy says they will miss Mission Beach greatly.

“There’s something very special about it,” he says.

“This is the closest the rainforest is to the Barrier Reef. It’s a magical conjunction of all things wild and wonderful.”

Either a two-hour drive south from Cairns or two-and-a-half hours north from Townsville, Mission Beach is mostly famous for its “wonderful but scary” cassowaries. 

However, McElroy says the 20-kilometre beach and its three villages have much more to offer: from the views across to Dunk Island on one side and towards the wetlands in the other direction, to the “amazing” local produce and the collection of people who’ve ended up in this  pristine tropical paradise.

McElroy says their local friends included a dairy farmer, a retired teacher, a doctor and a novelist – “a crazy collection of people who came to Mission Beach”.

While they love the hustle and bustle of Sydney, McElroy says it’s been nice to escape.

“The lifestyle is frankly cheaper and easier here,” he says.

“You come up here, you leave the rest of the world behind, and that’s a very powerful thing for people at our age.”

They’ve also loved the space. In Sydney their Walsh Bay apartment measures 140 square metres. In Mission Beach they have 360 square metres.

The penthouse has 90 square metres of outdoor entertaining space, which includes a plunge pool. Three of the property’s bedrooms are downstairs, while the main bedroom suite is upstairs.

Also on the main floor there’s a gourmet kitchen, an office and large living space, all with stunning views.

“We can live here on the top floor by ourselves,” McElroy says.

“To have all that available on one level, plus a view and a breeze, it’s just fantastic.”

What they will miss most though is their unusual morning routine.

“We like a cup of coffee in the morning,” McElroy says.

“We put on our bathing suits, walk 50 metres to the village to buy our cappuccinos, walk another 50 metres into the water, then we sit in the water, drinking our cappuccinos, watching about eight to 10 sky divers land on the beach in front of us, near where I left my thongs.

“That’s our morning routine. It’s so mad and so fabulous and so different, but you gotta make sacrifices for the family.” 

McElroy says they’ll certainly be back for holidays, and he hopes the buyer will enjoy Mission Beach as much as they have.

“Whoever buys this is going to be very happy.”