This island is twice the size of Hamilton Island and next to nobody’s heard of it
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Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, spent the best part of two years trying to buy Great Keppel Island.
Her company, Hancock Prospecting, struck a conditional agreement in 2021 to take over the island’s development lease for a reported $20 million or more, with plans for a beach club, luxury villas, and a marina modelled on Spain’s Puerto Banus.
Great Keppel Island is an almost untouched paradise in Queensland. Getty Images/iStockphoto
The deal collapsed in 2022, reportedly over native title issues and questions about whether the project stacked up commercially.
On the island itself, that outcome is still talked about with something close to relief.
I hadn’t heard of Great Keppel Island before I visited, and the first surprise is the scale of the place.
It’s part of the Southern Great Barrier Reef off the Capricorn Coast, reached by a 30-minute fast catamaran crossing from Keppel Bay Marina in Yeppoon, and it’s roughly twice the size of Hamilton Island.
Great Keppel Island has been described as “untouched” because it’s nowhere near as developed.
Where Hamilton has an airport, a golf course and a strip of resorts, Great Keppel has one open resort, a scattering of walking tracks and 17 beaches, several of which you can reasonably expect to have entirely to yourself. And that is part of its charm.
“Being twice the size of Hamilton Island but nowhere near as built up means our guests get beaches that are often completely empty, no crowds, no queues, no golf buggies everywhere,” Amy Harris, Events & Marketing Manager, Great Keppel Hideaway, told nine.com.au.
Visitors can enjoy having the beach all to themselves. Great Keppel Island Hideaway
It’s the trade-off of less polish for more space and privacy. You come here for the feeling of having an island to yourself, not for shopping strips or nightlife - its a barefoot paradise. ”
Waiting on the jetty was Tristan Jones, the manager of Great Keppel Hideaways, one of the few resorts on the Island. Jones has watched the parade of developers come and go,as Great Keppel has been earmarked for a major resort overhaul on and off for close to two decades, including the Rinehart proposal.
In complete isolation on Great Kepple Island. Immy Abdullah
The island beaches are the reason people keep trying to develop it. Long Beach and Monkey Beach are postcard shots, but it was the smaller, harder-to-reach coves that stood out.
Most of the Island’s beaches were empty, and it’s this isolation that makes Great Keppel Island so special. Even on a cold day in winter, the sand is pure white and the water is turquoise perfection.
If the goal is a beach with no one else on it, this is one of the more reliable places on the East Coast to find one.
I visited the island as part of a Queensland road trip. Immy Abdullah
Great Keppel Island Hideaway offers accommodation from budget cabins to the private villas.
The island runs occasional festivals and events through the year, but for the most part, it’s built for easy, low-key family holidays with a beach for every mood, an abundance of hiking trails, available year-round rather than as a peak-season scramble.
Since the Rinehart deal fell through, the Queensland Government has committed $30 million toward a masterplan aimed at reviving the island’s tourism infrastructure. This work is in progress.
Great Keppel Island Hideaway offers accommodation from budget cabins to the private villas. Great Keppel Island Hideaway
“We get to add the comfort and facilities guests want without losing that wide-open, uncrowded character that makes Keppel different in the first place,” Amy said.
“It’s been non-stop the last year or two. We’ve added extra solar panels and now make our own desalinated water on the island, which has been a huge step for how self-sufficient we are.
“We’ve also built six brand new luxurious glamping tents which have had really strong bookings, completely renovated 10 of our rooms, and we’re now moving through a refresh of all our island cabins.”
For now, the island remains quiet. Great Keppel Island Hideaway
But for now, Great Keppel remains a quiet, largely undeveloped, and a lot bigger than its profile suggests.
Getting there
Funtastic Cruises runs day trips to Great Keppel Island from Keppel Bay Marina, Yeppoon, departing around 9am and returning by 3pm. Yeppoon is about a two-hour drive from Bundaberg or a 40-minute drive from Rockhampton Airport.
This writer travelled as a guest of Tourism and Events Queensland.
