THE SOUTHERN GATEWAY

When John Burnett explored the coastal plains of the Wide Bay region in 1847, he found and named (after himself ) a broad river flowing into the Coral Sea. The river became the focus for a settlement that has grown into the vibrant city of Bundaberg, 385km north of Brisbane. ‘Bundy’ is the seat of local government and a thriving commercial centre for the Wide Bay–Burnett Region. Its commercial heart is Bourbong Street, shaded by century-old weeping figs and surrounded by a civic precinct featuring many fine heritage-listed buildings. Federation-era bridges connect the CBD to suburbs on the northern riverbank.

Rising in the Dawes Range, the Burnett River unites a network of tributaries that drain a catchment of 33,000 sq km and flows 435km through a fertile floodplain largely devoted to intensive sugar cane cultivation, and commercial fruit and vegetable production. Through this watery abundance, the region has emerged as the food bowl of Queensland, accounting for about 10 per cent of the state’s agricultural production.

The fertile riverine floodplains slope gently to a coastline of sandy beaches interspersed by jumbles of five million-year-old basalt, remnants of a small volcano known as ‘The Hummock’. Although much of the native lowland eucalypt forests and melaleuca woodlands have been cleared