Experience the best of Mackay

Mackay stands on the Pioneer River, where flat fields of sugar cane run to the sea, and it is often called the sugar capital of Australia. A cyclone in 1918 destroyed much of the centre, and it was rebuilt in the fashionable styles of the 1920s and 1930s, so that many art deco facades survive along its main streets. Parks and a promenade follow the river.

Eungella National Park, in the mountains west of the city, has cool rainforest and a stretch of river where wild platypuses can often be seen at dawn and dusk. At Cape Hillsborough, north of Mackay, kangaroos and wallabies feed on the beach at sunrise. The Whitsunday islands lie farther north, and the Pioneer Valley is a green farming district of cane and creeks.

Mud crabs, prawns and barramundi come from the coast and rivers, and tropical fruit fills the markets. Winters are warm and dry, and summers hot and humid, with the heaviest rain between January and March. The cane harvest runs through the dry months, when narrow-gauge cane trains rattle across the fields to the mills.