Near Coochiemudlo Island, flying boat history reveals a time when a trip across Moreton Bay could begin with a boat ride to an aircraft.

The aircraft did not use a runway: they landed on the water and carried passengers between Queensland and destinations beyond.

At Redland Bay, a flying boat base opened in 1953, making the waterfront part of an unusual passenger network.

For travellers, the experience was a world away from today's airport queues, gates and long stretches of tarmac.

Passengers and luggage travelled by boat from the jetty to the waiting aircraft, turning the bay itself into a departure lounge.

Qantas and Ansett Airways both operated services from the base, using large flying boats rather than the small aircraft some might imagine.

Among them were Short Sandringhams, passenger aircraft built for journeys that connected coastal communities and destinations across the South Pacific.

Qantas flights through Redland Bay included routes to Noumea and Suva before its operations there ended in 1955.

Ansett continued flying boats after that, serving island destinations and Gladstone as aviation elsewhere moved steadily toward conventional airports.

Even the Redland Bay Hotel had a place in the story, serving as a booking office and refreshment stop for Qantas passengers.

That detail makes the past feel wonderfully close: a familiar local landmark once helped people prepare for international travel.

For anyone exploring the coast near Coochiemudlo Island, it is an arresting picture of ordinary waterfront life transformed.

Eventually, better land-based aircraft and airport facilities made passenger flying boats less practical for regular services.

The final departure from Redland Bay came in October 1971, when Ansett's Short Sandringham Islander left for Sydney.

The base officially closed in 1974, ending a chapter that had lasted roughly two decades.

Today's shoreline offers few obvious clues that large passenger aircraft once shared these waters with boats.

Yet the old jetty, hotel connection and passenger transfers show how flying boat bases depended on far more than aircraft.

They relied on working waterfronts, local services and people willing to make an unusual journey run smoothly.

That is what makes this corner of Moreton Bay more than a footnote in Australian aviation history.

Its passenger flying boats left behind a vivid reminder that the familiar coastline has held some extraordinary departures.

Check out the Redlands Coast Museum website.