Plans forming to open Mackay Harbour’s Pine Islet Lighthouse

Steeped in history and now an icon of Mackay’s coastal life, the red-topped Pine Islet Lighthouse could soon be given a new lease on life. What you need to know.

Mackay is poised to capitalise on having the world’s last fully operational kerosene lighthouse with a push to start tours behind the long-locked doors.

For a century the red-topped lighthouse — now an icon at the Mackay Harbour — shone its warning light over the rocks in the Percy Islands’ Broadsound Channel, about 65 nautical miles southeast of Mackay.

Pine Island Lighthouse in 1931. Picture: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Neg 202499

Solar power made the lighthouse redundant and it was decommissioned in 1986 with Mackay residents rallying for it to be reassembled at Mackay almost at decade later in 1995.

Mackay Regional Councillor Fran Mann said there were ambitions to repair the rundown lighthouse and turn into a tourist attraction.

“There is rust, it’s just general wear-and-tear things, because I think it’s been since about 2014 since any maintenance has been done to it,” Cr Mann said.

Mackay Regional Councillor Fran Mann said repair works at the Pine Islet Lighthouse would require specific paint to withstand the coastal weather.

Cr Mann said the Pine Islet Lighthouse Committee had dissolved since it was formed in 2015 but a former member was engaging with the council’s Character and Heritage Advisory Committee.

She said the next steps were to re-establish a committee, unlock funding for maintenance and a conservation management plan, and to possibly re-enlist the lighthouse on the Queensland State Heritage Register after it was removed in 2007.

The stairs inside the Pine Islet Lighthouse at Mackay Harbour. Picture: File

“It’s certainly very exciting,” Cr Mann said.

“Cr (Justin) Englert wants to champion (it) as well because he lives there and he said he’d be happy to open it up so people could have a look through,” she said.

Virtual tours were also being considered.

Cr Mann said they would also need to establish who actually owned the lighthouse on Brisbane-based Port Binnli’s land.

Council documents state the lighthouse’s original bookwork and paperwork were still at the harbour.