Armed with a photo from 2021, we set out at low tide to find the lost car of Four Mile Beach.

Paddy’s bar regular John had given myself and another friend - also named John, but looking more like Jimmy Barnes than the first one - the photo and pointed out on the map where the decayed car was buried in sand off the coast of Port Douglas.

We waited until the king tides were at their lowest at 2.30pm last Wednesday afternoon and strode out confidently across the vast region of low-tide sand and reef out the front of near where the Palmer golf course is.

Spreading out separately across the sandy expanses, we searched more than a square kilometre of area between there and the Mowbray River outlet, but could not find the mysterious wreck.