A boat that went missing from a Northland bay more than a year ago has turned up drifting off the coast of Australia.



The oyster barge, the Facilitator 2, vanished from its berth in Houhora in August last year. It was thought to have been stolen and police appealed through media for any sightings of it.



Several tips were reported, including a sighting near the Bay of Islands, around the Snells Beach area and also being towed by a 4WD vehicle near Dome Valley and on the north of Auckland, but none were confirmed.



Now, it has been discovered in Australia on the remote far-north Queensland coast between Cape Bedford and Cape Flattery - thousands of kilometres from its original home.



Police said Australian man Ross Garnsey found the barge.



He said it had obviously been drifting for some time and at some stage was upside down gauging from the wear on the motor.



Garnsey told Houhora Constable Tracee Knowler it was amazing the barge had stayed afloat as there were cracks and holes in the hull.



Knowler said police did not know at this stage whether the barge had been stolen or if it had broken its mooring.



"It may be difficult after all this time to determine how the barge ended up so far from home," she said.



She wanted to thank Garnsey for making the effort to find out where the boat had came from, because many people would not have bothered to do that.



"I was very surprised to get a phone call from a previous owner, who had been contacted by Ross, to say the boat had been found," she said.