Adventure-story islands

Second World War Australian poster depicting a flying boat over Hinchinbrook Island. The text reads:

Adventure-story islands

Down below shines the magic fringe of Australia, pale sand, white
surf and the green sea deepening to blue. Away to the East, the great
coral Barrier flings down its long, protecting arm. In between, are
the islands. Hinchinbrook throws up its green peaks, tall and grand,
but there are thousands of other less pretentious islands. Toy-sized islands.
Adventure-story islands.
From here in the clouds they are gold-ringed gems in the sea, like
close-ups of stars in a sky upside down. But from the decks of the
little grey ships they are palm trees on a hill-top growing out of
the ocean. They are bright banks of coral edged with white. They are
whirring circling clouds of sea birds, never still: coconuts growing
and ripening and falling to the ground: turtles clambering ashore in
the moonlight to lay their eggs high up on the sand; white virgin
beaches smoothed by the tide.
Once, in the old days, I dropped anchor at one of those green specks.
It was tiny, unnamed, untouched and untrodden by human foot...like
tomorrow. And just for a moment I knew what Cook felt
when he reached the great South Land and saw in it a New World. It
was the impulse to dare the unknown, to discover, to strike out a new,
independent path. It was a natural expression of the way British people
have lived and thought. It was the raw stuff out of which Empires
were built and by which freedoms are won and retained.