Off the Bass Highway in North West Tasmania, Ulverstone is a coastal town that has been spruced up in the last decade to meet an influx of tourists. It’s no surprise that Ulverstone should be on people’s radars given the breadth of things to do close by. Go south and you’ll climb into the massive …
The main city and economic heart of Western Australia‘s remote Pilbara region is Karratha, founded as recently as 1968. Although the area has European history going back another century, Karratha is the product of an iron ore mining boom that began a few decades ago. Karratha’s landscapes are almost Martian for the reddish tint lent …
The rural city of Wangaratta is at the foot of the Australian Alps, by the confluence of the King and Ovens Rivers. Trace the King Valley up into the Alps and you’ll discover vineyards planted with Italian varietals like Pinot Grigio and Sangiovese. The Ovens Valley meanwhile is the old route of a 19th-century railway, …
This rural town sits in Queensland‘s Central Highlands, just past the eastern edge of a vast sapphire producing region. A lot of the names around Emerald are taken from precious stones, like Rubyvale and Sapphire Central, while off to the east is Queensland’s coalmining capital, Blackwater. You can head off to the Sapphire Gemfields and …
If you’re familiar with the town of Yeppoon on Queensland’s Capricorn Coast and haven’t visited for a while, you may be bowled over by what greets you today. After taking a battering in Cyclone Marcia in 2015, Yeppoon’s foreshore has been entirely revamped with parks, picnic areas, a fantastic water playground for kids and a …
Wrapped in a bend on the Clarence River, the city of Grafton is a treat for its historic architecture and stately avenues lined with mature trees. In October Grafton’s multitude of jacarandas come into bloom, and this enchanting scene is celebrated with a week-long festival. The city has a lot of architecture from the Victorian, …
Up there with Australia’s most important industrial centres, the South Australian city of Port Pirie is home to one of the world’s largest smelting facilities. Since the 1880s the silver-lead-zinc ore mined in Broken Hill, NSW has been transported across hundreds of kilometres of outback to be refined in Port Pirie and then exported. And …
At Batemans Bay on NSW‘s South Coast the shimmering waters of the Clyde River pour into the Pacific Ocean. If you’re into seafood, the river estuary is one of Australia’s best locations for shellfish, and you can try super-fresh oysters freshly plucked from the waters. Batemans Bay is also an ecotourism paradise, where you can …
On the north bank of the Murray River, just inside New South Wales, Moama is one half of a twin town crossing both the river and the state border. This puts you as close as can be to Echuca, which emerged as Australia’s largest inland port in the 19th century. Echuca’s heritage has been meticulously …
The largest multi-commodity seaport in the whole of Queensland was hardly more than a village as recently as the 1960s. Gladstone is now the world’s fourth-largest coal exporting terminal, but to talk only about industry would be to sell the town short. One of the top regional botanic gardens is right here, and national parks, …