Journalist recalls the Sunshine Coast hunt for Prince Harry

I REMEMBER the fuss in 2003 when Prince Harry was reported to be on the Coast and staying in Noosa. The assignment for the week? Find him.

Was this Prince Harry and friends fishing off Sunshine Beach during his 2003 visit? We believed so at the time. Picture: Geoff Potter

I REMEMBER the fuss in 2003 when Prince Harry was reported to be on the Coast and staying in Noosa.

The assignment for the week? Find him.

After discussing a raft of excellent tips from our "deep throat”, first port of call that day was a Sunshine Beach home belonging to a prominent Australian business establishment family.

With at least one knight and one dame in their lineage, how could they have possibly refused a request to shelter the young prince?

We barely got within 50m of the front door before a rugger scrum of security types descended. They'd been scoping Harry's haunt from a house on the high side of the quiet, beachside road.

Prince Harry and fiancee Meghan Markle - 15 years and a lifetime since the young prince's visit to Sunshine Beach. Picture: FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA

A van bristling with cameras was monitoring the street also. Harry apparently wasn't taking visits from local hacks that day.

Shortly after exchanging details, a call came through from a Buckingham Palace media advisor, a former Sunshine Coast Daily journalist, dusted off for her "local influence”, who requested we respect the prince's privacy in return for a promised scoop a few days later, which of course was never going to happen.

After filing the story of the day's excitement, the photographer and I thought we might see Harry during an early morning swim out the front the following day.

Not wanting to spook the spooks, I fronted at 6am dressed in beach fishing gear, rigged for tailor with a 14 foot beach rod, Alvey side-caster, six kilo line, gang-hooks and pilchards with tape recorder and camera in my fishing bag.

I'd jagged a flathead and a few dart from a nice gutter right in front of Harry's hideaway before our photographer rocked up in full work gear.

The MI5 boys didn't buy it. Cover blown, we left. Good breakfast though.

Right on cue, Woman's Day produced a story about Harry having a night of innocent romance with local barmaid Cindy Butcher who worked part-time at the Sunshine Beach Surf Club.

Enquiries at the club suggested the unimaginable; that the mag had fabricated gossip intended to generate sales.

I was shattered.

Lovely to see Harry turn out to be such a fine young man.