When this photo was taken they were backpacking through tropical paradise... but who are they, where are they from and where are they now?

After a year of floating through the ocean, a camera containing this photograph and hundreds of others washed up on a remote island in the Whitsundays where it was found by fishermen. Now the local and international community are working hard to return it to its owners.

The camera is being kept safe by local rafting business owner Peter Claxton and he says there are only a few clues to who they might be.

He says the couple had visited national parks together and went on an overnight ocean rafting tour with his company. Luckily one of the last photos had a date stamp on it for January 18, 2013.

"I went back and had a look at the images and was doing my Inspector Clouseau bit.

"Because we've got four boats we couldn't work out exactly which boat it was on because we've got 110 people on the manifest that day.

"He must have lost the camera on the day that he was out ocean rafting because those were the very last images."

Mr Claxton says he is fairly positive the mystery couple is European.

"90 per cent of the patronage on the overnight boat is European."

The company posted the couple's picture on Facebook and within 48 hours the post had around 2,000 shares around the world.

"It's the electronic bush telegraph.

"Think how big the wilderness is... that's the profound thing about it.

"Here we are in whoop whoop in the middle of nowhere and you've got somebody that happens to go up one of the many creeks in the middle of nowhere and not been unscrupulous and said, 'Oh I found myself a nice camera.'"

Long Island Sound, where the camera was found dangling off a mangrove tree in a waterproof bag, is not frequented by many people.

"You can only access it by boat and it was a very remote part of the Whitsunday islands.

"It got sucked in on a high tide, got hooked up in the mangroves and then as the tide went away it was hanging in the tree so that's one of the reasons the camera was in good condition."