"Coastal North Queen ..." a State of Queensland Travel Page by Kate-Me

The parts of Queensland which I have explored now, thanks to my recent trip, are from Mackay in the mid tropical north, to Townsville, Cairns, Port Douglas and part of the Daintree National Park, and I have to say, much of the countryside which I saw, took me quite by surprise.

I knew it would be the tropics, and so I was expecting a lot of tropical vegetation, and a lot more green.
But actually the tropical belt is very close to the coast, and really doesn't extend very far inland at all.
Especially at the moment in 2003, when tropical north Queensland is also in bad drought (for the past 4 years at least) like the rest of the country, and only Cairns seems to be managing ok with the tropical crop yield like Sugar Cane (and bananas, etc).

A few hours south (like about 7 - 8 hours) at Mackay, sugar cane is failing to reach its usual height and yield is as low as 10% on normal, and some farmers are needing to receive subsidies from the Governement to try and survive (like their sheep and other farming compatriots elsewhere, in the south of the country, and probably the West too).
It doesn't seem like anywhere in Australia is unscathed from the drought at the moment, and that's a real problem.

But drought aside, Queensland was still a surprise. I expected to see all the cane crops, and wasn't disappointed, the banana plantations (not so many of them that I saw along the coast) but I wasn't expecting to see so much dry Eucalypt bushland too, just like at home.