Daintree holiday accommodation on the market with lucrative water licence

Nestled among towering ancient trees and cascading waterfalls, Mr Kerr and his wife have listed a tranquil piece of paradise comprised of two separate holiday homes.

“It’s rare, unique and irreplaceable,” Mr Kerr said. “There’s total privacy with more than 13,000 square metres of pristine 160-million-year-old rainforest under World Heritage protection.”

“A botanist surveyed the land and told me there are plant species here that don’t exist anywhere else in the world.”

The marine engineer built a hydroelectric power plant on-site, so both properties run totally off the grid without a generator.

“All the energy comes from the creek,” Mr Kerr said. “It’s priceless.”

The established holiday homes – a two-bedroom hexagonal gem and a separate one-bedroom cottage – have a turnover history exceeding $110,000 per annum.

But the most extraordinary selling point is the opportunity to extract, bottle and sell millions of litres of pure rainforest water. The property comes with a water permit for up to 100,000 litres per day, or 18 million litres per annum, for the next 90 years.

In addition to the licence, a brand new bottling shed was built on the property and includes bottling stock and business registered Daintree rainforest spring water labelling.

Listing agent Steve Doble of Ray White Port Douglas said the water licence was rare and a “mammoth opportunity” to generate income. 

“It needs automated bottling machinery or otherwise to be purchased, so that’s about $150,000,” he said. “You could bottle on-site or get a tanker and take the water elsewhere.”

The source of a pair of freshwater streams converging on the property has been traced back to a mountain range about 1000 metres above sea level.

“The source of that spring is believed to have come from Papua New Guinea, travelling underground and coming through as a spring in the Daintree Forest,” Mr Doble explained.

Mr Doble said the water licence had made it difficult to price the property against other sales in the area.

“We’re not really comparing apples with apples.”

“There’s nothing that has sold up here in the past 20 years with a water licence of that nature and the quality of water to onsell. Yes, there are people with a crop or grazing system that have a licence, but that’s a hell of a lot different from being able to bottle incredibly good quality, pristine water from the world’s oldest living rainforest.” 

Nevertheless, other sales suggest the property could fetch more than $2 million when it goes to auction on September 18.

The future owner can take over the successful holiday letting business, Daintree Cascades. Alternatively, the property is suited to become a secluded family home.

After 20 years of ownership, Mr Kerr said selling the property was “the hardest decision I’ll ever make in my life”, but he and his wife had decided to sail around the world in their catamaran.

Among those enquiring on the property are local Queenslanders, as well as buyers from New South Wales and Victoria.

“The Douglas Shire real estate market is experiencing the highest sell-through rate and lowest time on market in 15 years,” Mr Doble said, citing the flock of tree-changers leaving cities behind in favour of smaller, regional locations.

But he admitted border closures and strict lockdown measures had thrown a spanner in the works of the marketing campaign. Battling through unreliable mobile phone coverage, Mr Doble has facilitated virtual inspections of the property.