Australia's Queensland

Traveling in the Australian state of Queensland

Maybe you haven't heard of the Australian state of Queensland, occupying the northeast quarter of the country—but I'll bet you've heard of it's biggest (in many ways) sight, the Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders of the world and a diver's and snokeler's paradise.

The gateway to the Great Barrier Reef is Cairns—though regional capital and chief city is Brisbane.

Queensland is, to the the least, varied: from the subtropical jungles and rainforests of the monsoon-strafed northern Cape York Peninsula (that long finger of land pointing up toward New Guinea) to the sparkling beaches of the famed Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, to the remarkable sandy mass of Fraser Island, to the parched Outback deserts of the west at the borders with Northern Territory and South Australia.