Australia's biggest attraction is its natural beauty. The landscape varies from endless sun-baked horizons to dense tropical rainforest to chilly southern beaches. Scattered along the coasts, its cities blend a European enthusiasm for art and food with a laid-back love of sport and the outdoors.

Visitors expecting to see an opera in Sydney one night and meet Crocodile Dundee the next will have to re-think their grasp of geography in this huge country. It is this sheer vastness that gives Australia - and its diverse population - much of its character.

When To Go

Any time is a good time to be in Australia. Summer (December to February) can get uncomfortably hot but it's great beach weather. Up north, the summer-wet season is very, very humid and the sea is swarming with box jellyfish. Winter (June to August) offers skiing in NSW, Victoria and sometimes Tasmania. In spring and autumn the weather is mild.

Australia's third-largest city feels no need to toot its own horn. While other capitals scramble to reach top billing in the status stakes, Brisbane quietly executes its evolution in true, casual Queensland style. It feels no need to advertise its virtues - locals know how good they've got it.

Brisbane is a big-city package but the pretensions are refreshingly absent. The city centre sits within a tropical landscape while cooling its toes in the undulating Brisbane River, and it boasts a climate that lures pale and chilly southerners by the truckload.