The Natural and man-made attractions at Chillagoe Queensland

A place that has ancient aboriginal rock paintings, historic mining relics, amazing limestone caves and a unique vehicle museum would attract many people, writes Len Rutledge 

Our anticipation was high as we headed 140 kilometres west of Mareeba along the Wheelbarrow Way to Chillagoe, North Queensland and a day later we agreed that our expectations had been surpassed.

Chillagoe was once an ancient coral reef which has been transformed into spectacular limestone bluffs with a network of more than 500 caves. It is one of the most interesting and unusual places in the whole of northern Queensland.

Follow the Goulburn Heritage Trail

If you said the one thing you remember about Goulburn was the Big Merino, then you’d be in good company. The massive concrete beast, dubbed ‘Rambo’ by good-natured locals, celebrates the region’s wool and sheep industry which catapulted Goulburn along the road to economic success almost 200 years ago.

The Australian Outback is a bonanza for 'pickers' and 'junkers'

The vast Australian outback yields wonder for 'pickers' and scrapyard junkies. The dry desert air preserves many relics that would otherwise disintegrate in warmer, wetter regions, leaving a veritable museum of history scattered over hundreds of thousands of square kilometres.

South Australia's Mallee: a road trip through history

Over 100 years ago, just before the First World War, South Australia (SA) began a concerted effort to open up the Mallee region to agriculture, mainly wheat and sheep. 

The central hub of the district was Karoonda, established in 1913, growing quickly to become a major rural and commercial centre and rail yard with loading facilities for the vast quantities of grain harvested from the surrounding district, now largely cleared of the slow-growing, stubby eucalypt trees that once dominated the semiarid landscape to the Victorian border and beyond.  

The rural silo art project like this example in Karoonda
has helped bring tourists back to remote towns in SA (R Eime 2020)