Moving House Queensland Style

Having arrived at Magnetic Island, our northerly prize for this year, we wasted no time in catching a bus from our anchorage at Horseshoe Bay across to Picnic Bay on the Southern side. Upon our return from a tasty pub lunch, the anchorage had a couple of very industrial looking vessels making their way through the 60-70 boats anchored out. Whatever was going on, we wondered?

The Bloke introduced himself to Sandra who was taking a greater than ordinary interest. “That’s my house!” she declared. 

A barge was being maneuvered around by a tug boat. The cargo included 2 prime movers each towing half a timber house. 

At 9pm there was to be a king high tide and the barge was being positioned to use the extra water depth to come as close to shore as possible. The trucks would be off loaded and the half houses driven to their destination where stumps, acrow props, rollers and such were already in place to support and position the building parts. 

Building a house on Magnetic Island is expensive since all the materials must first be transported from the mainland (Townsville). The construction workers usually need to be accommodated on the island too. All this substantially escalates the cost of building a new home. Queensland has a ready supply of timber homes that were fashionable last century but left unloved or in the way of some kind of urban renewal. These homes can be sold and removed by house movers - the literal kind- they relocate the entire house. It’s a high scale recycling industry. There are industrial lots on the fringes of cities that are a virtual show space of rescued timber homes. All one need do is choose one. Sandra told us that $175,000 was what it cost her to buy one of these homes and it included the re-location and the reassembly. All she needed was a block of land. 




Navigation lights confirm that this is still a marine vessel. Pylons were lowered to secure a part of the barge to the sea bed.

The workers needed only to wait for the tide to rise.

The ramp being lowered to enable the prime movers to get onto the beach.




By morning the barge had gone The trucks took the vehicle ferry back to the mainland. Evidently this is a common process along the more remote north coast. And that folks is a story about moving house in North Queensland. Brilliant!