From Airlie Beach to Yeppoon

Most visitors to Queensland head to the coast and/or the reef (a few more places there follow) but there are many towns inland that offer an insight into the outback and pioneering spirit.

Heading west from Brisbane is an alternative for people heading to New South Wales. You can go to Toowoomba, a gracious, green city with wide, tree-lined streets and colonial architecture. The Aboriginal people pronounced the name ‘T’wamp-bah’, and it became ‘Toowoomba’ – which reminds me of the two men arguing over this very pronunciation (TooWOOMba or TOOwoomBAH) when a clergyman stepped in and took one side. Both men were surprised that the man of the cloth had heard a hippopotamus break wind under water.

Goondiwindi is at the junction of six highways on the Macintyre River and New South Wales border. It’s a prosperous and pretty town with a Spring Fair (October) full of flowering jacarandas and silky oaks.

There’s a statue of Gunsynd in Apex Park in Goondiwindi. In the Sentimental Stakes, Gunsynd comes in second to Phar Lap in racing history. He won the hearts of Australians in the early 1970s. It was his personality more than his impressive 29 wins and 15 places from 54 starts, including the Cox Plate, Doncaster, Epsom, Sandown Cup and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. He was big, friendly, and inquisitive with a powerful winning burst. He seemed to love the thrill of a win and the applause, nodding his head to the crowd in appreciation. In 1972, on a sweltering November Tuesday, he carried the top weight of 60.5 kilograms for a gallant third place in the Melbourne Cup and the cheers from the Flemington crowd as his number went into the frame were far greater than those for the winner.

Birdsville is really not on the way to anywhere and is a boomerang’s toss from the South Australian border (they don’t come back for me). When the population of 100 swells to 5000 for the Birdsville Races (September), the Birdsville Hotel (1883) really gets a work out.

Heading up the coast from Brisbane, at the top end of the Sunshine Coast, is Gympie. A gold rush town, it was fortunate to have fertile soil so it could continue to thrive on farming when the gold petered out. It’s an attractive provincial city where you can still try your luck panning for gold, and its home to The National Country Music Muster in August and the Gold Rush Festival in October.

A little further inland is Kingaroy, a town that has given itself the titles ‘Peanut Capital of Australia’ and ‘Baked Bean Capital of Australia’. It’s a prosperous agricultural town and famous for being home to former State Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (renowned for his ‘Don’t you worry about that’ response to most questions), and his Senator and pumpkin scone-baking wife, Flo.

Bundaberg is the southernmost access point to the Great Barrier Reef. The town, famous for its sugar and Bundaberg Rum, has lots of parks and gardens, and it’s a good spot for whale-watching (August to October). GANGgajang (the band’s name comes from a creative group, ‘GANG’ and the sound of a guitar, ‘gajang’) comes to mind:

Out on the patio we’d sit,
And the humidity we’d breathe,
We’d watch the lightning crack over canefields
Laugh and think, this is Australia.

Gladstone is a prosperous, busy harbour city and is close to the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef and is famous for its Queensland ‘muddies’ (mud crabs).

Theodore is inland, between Miles and Gladstone and tourism is not one of its main sources of income. It’s more a grain and cotton place but, if you are passing through, note that the town was designed by Walter Burley Griffin.

Yeppoon is a popular resort on the Capricorn Coast near Rockhampton. There are lots of good beaches nearby and Great Keppel Island is 13km offshore.

Rockhampton is called the beef capital of Australia and has Australia’s longest National Trust-classified street (over 20 classified buildings). From here you can head into the real outback on the Capricorn Highway.

Emerald is a pretty town with shady Moreton Bay figs and large sapphire fields nearby. You can get a licence to fossick for gems and there are farm stays on cattle stations.

Longreach is a friendly, modern town, slap dab in the middle of the State. Famous for its development of Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service), there is a Qantas Founders Museum at the airport and Qantas Park in Eagle Street has a replica of the original Qantas booking office as the Visitor Information Centre. The person behind the counter will be sure to mention the Stockman’s Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre on Matilda Highway.

In 1870 Captain Starlight (Harry Redford) and four mates rounded up 1000 head of cattle and drove them 2400 kilometres to South Australia over unmapped country that had claimed the lives of Burke and Wills. He sold the cattle, which weren’t his, and pocketed the money. He was arrested and taken back to Roma for the trial where the jury ignored the evidence and found him not guilty, simply because he’d been daring enough to pull off the near impossible.

From Longreach you can head north to Muttaburra (population 92). The town is most famous for lending its name to a dinosaur, previously unknown until 1961 when Muttaburrasaurus bones were discovered in a cattle-holding yard. The area was once part of an inland sea and has many fossil remains.

Winton is a major sheep area and a trucking centre for giant road trains transporting cattle. Its main claim to fame is that Banjo Paterson wrote Waltzing Matilda near here in 1895. The town’s water supply comes from an artesian bores at a temperature of 83°C.

Cloncurry is an important mining town and was home to the first Royal Flying Doctor Service Base. It became the country’s largest source of copper because Burke and Wills got lost. A search party reported distinctive traces of copper in the area.

Mount Isa is a company town (Mount Isa Mines operates one of the largest silver-lead mines in the world). It’s an oasis in the middle of hot, unforgiving cattle country. Every August, Australia’s largest rodeo sees the population of 21 000 almost double.

Back to the coast.....

Mackay is a large, sugar-producing coastal city. Tourism is a growth industry because it’s handy to Brampton, Lindeman and Hamilton islands. There’s some delightful architecture and the seafood is terrific.

Airlie Beach is the centre of the Whitsunday Coast, overlooking the passage and islands, and is a lovely resort town in itself.

Shute Harbour is second only to Sydney’s Circular Quay as a marine passenger terminal and is the best place to start exploring the Whitsunday waters and islands.

Townsville is Australia’s largest tropical city and is a most attractive place with historic buildings, a fine waterfront and tropical parks and gardens. You can pick up a cruise on the Coral Princess and take reef trips to Magnetic, Orpheus, Hinchinbrook and Dunk islands. There are also outback, rainforest and white-water rafting tours as well as wildlife sanctuaries and marine research centres.

Inland, (135km from Townsville) is Charters Towers, a town that typifies a part of Australia with its wide verandahs and lacework. Once a gold-rush boomtown there are still profitable mines as well as old ones to tour.

Mission Beach is simply lovely. Quiet, with a 14-kilometre long sandy beach, coconut trees and a tropical rainforest fringing the island, it is a magnet to the creative, and art and craft galleries abound.

Innisfail is another prosperous town, full of colour and lush, tropical produce (sugarcane, pawpaw, bananas and some rarer fruits) along with beef cattle, prawn and fishing industries. A good base for hopping out to some of the quieter Barrier Reef islands, including Dunk.

Cooktown was once a rowdy gold-rush port with 37 pubs. There are now only three but that may grow. Plenty of people are predicting this will be the ‘next Port Douglas’ for tourism. It’s a fishing and prawning town, and is also a gateway to the Outer Barrier Reef.

Karumba is also a prawning town at the mouth of a river but on the other side of the Cape. It’s the gateway to the Gulf and is surrounded by flat wetlands full of brolgas, cranes and saltwater crocodiles. Barramundi fishing is big.

Weipa, on the west coast of Cape York, is a centre for travellers needing access to services and facilities. It’s a mining town and home to the world’s largest bauxite mine, which means it’s also the largest bauxite mine in the Southern Hemisphere!

More Information

For more information about Queensland:

• Events And Festivals
• Accommodation
• To See And Do
• Brisbane
• Gold Coast
• Sunshine Coast
• The Great Barrier Reef
• Tropical North Queensland

Queensland Tours With Tours To Go