Cairns, Northern Queensland

Cairns is the last significant city on the East coast of Australia as you move north. I am not going to discuss the exact definition of "significant" - at least it has a couple of buildings with lifts and parking restrictions, even though the sign that said "12 hour parking limit between 9am and 5pm" did puzzle me a bit. The road that follows the coast ends about 150 kilometers north of Cairns; beyond that one can travel only in a seriously equipped four-wheel drive. The area along the coast looks like a postcard tropical destination - lush rainforests, great beaches, corals of the Great Barrier Reef. If you drive inland, climate becomes dry very fast, and within an hour drive from the coast one starts seeing landscapes which I associated mostly with Western Australia - dry red earth, termite mounds, and sparse eucalyptus trees.