Australia is blessed with a vast number of stunning swimming holes, lakes, creeks, rivers and beaches. We thought we'd take one for the team and find a few excellent spots for you to cool down.

When Australia's premier arts industry awards said they wanted to honour the lifetime achievement of this music legend, he had one condition.

Lynelle Urquhart's home on a property west of Moonie in outback Queensland is normally quiet. But she has been having trouble sleeping lately, thanks to late-night activity under the floorboards.

Locals describe it as the "worst drought in living memory" but things are about to get worse in the Queensland town of Stanthorpe with its water supply just weeks from drying up.

Jacinta Foulds's husband shares his grief just hours after the 35-year-old's death to warn others how suddenly influenza A can kill, saying: "I've lost my soul mate and the mother of my children. If you're sick, go to the doctor".

Outback journalist Jaimee-lee Prow is on the spot in the southern Queensland town of Muckadilla as fire guts the local pub.

A Year 6 student who lives in a town surrounded by mines and CSG wells demonstrated by herself during last week's climate strike. But the reaction to her protest proved she was anything but alone.

Over half a century, the Roma Saleyards in southern Queensland have become more than just a place to sell and buy livestock. They're a meeting point, a social occasion and even an unlikely tourist destination.

At least one home is destroyed and there are fears for several others as fire crews deal with a bushfire emergency at Laidley in Queensland's Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane.

The blaze, which is now contained but still smouldering, had prompted a warning for locals in nearby Marburg to evacuate. The warning has been lifted but authorities are still fighting about 30 fires across the state.

Some southern Queenslanders say they're watching Midsomer Murders just to get a glimpse of flowing water. Despite the "pathetically dry" conditions, they are finding much-needed solace in their gardens.

It was the big idea that could have been a huge success or an expensive disaster, but more than 20 years later this little community is still reaping the benefits of a bold decision.

A Queensland grazier turns to donkeys to ward off wild dogs and says he hasn't lost a calf in a paddock patrolled by the feisty guardian asses.

Safety versus spying: the legalities of using hidden cameras in a world were technology allows you to protect your home remotely.

Researchers are puzzled by the discovery of a nest of loggerhead turtle eggs in Queensland. The find seems to indicate that the creatures have been unseasonably frisky, which should be impossible.

22-year-old Max Quaglio refuses to let cerebral palsy get in the way of his dream of driving trucks.

Queensland painter Wayne Malkin claims a record for creating the world's smallest painting on the end of a matchstick, but he won't make it into the record books.

A three-year-old girl who drowned in a backyard dam at her family's property on Queensland's Sunshine Coast is being remembered as a happy and bright child.

An unwanted steam locomotive that was left to rust has become a symbol of pride for a Queensland town, thanks to years of painstaking restoration work.

Residents of Noosa Springs have a close call when a bushfire comes within metres of homes, while fires continue to burn on Bribie Island.

Why does the Australian Tax Office require people to tick a mental illness box for early access to their superannuation to fund gender transition surgery?

A body is found at a crash site in the Sunshine Coast hinterland during a search for a motorcyclist missing since Monday after he failed to return home.

Sunshine Coast man John Broomfield could not sail at all until recently, but that has not stopped him from joining a year-long, 40,000-nautical mile yacht race.

When the vet x-rayed their young dog and found a mass in its intestines, Duke's owners never imagined it would be a lump of cement.

A former Queensland deputy principal indecently assaulted a teenager at a wake after the funeral of the girl's father in the 1990s, a court hears.

Former deputy principal Kenneth Ralph Ernst is found guilty of multiple counts of indecent assault of a teenage girl in the 1990s by a Queensland court.

Former school deputy principal Kenneth Ralph Ernst is jailed for the prolonged sexual abuse of a young girl, in a case the judge described as a "gross breach of trust" made worse by Ernst's decision to plead not guilty.

Karin Radburnd fought for hours to save her home at Peregian Springs overnight as large flames surrounded the property after a large fire sparked a major ongoing emergency, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes.

The dramatic rescue of 94-year-old Andrew Michael from the Peregian Beach firestorm on Monday was captured on video. He's now returned home and says his rescuers did "a very good job".

A large bushfire is continuing to burn through swamp and bushland on North Stradbroke Island, off Brisbane, ahead of an expected influx of 8,000 school holiday visitors.

A delicate rescue operation frees a baby humpback from shark nets off Noosa on the Sunshine Coast with the whale's mother staying close to her calf during the ordeal.

Severe thunderstorms brought more than 100 millimetres of rain to some parts of the Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast overnight, flooding homes and businesses within minutes.

A local politician's stab at finding romance on reality television could backfire, as the Noosa Mayor considers a code of conduct probe into Councillor Jess Glasgow.

A formal investigation begins over the actions of Noosa Shire Councillor Jess Glasgow as a contestant on reality TV dating program The Bachelorette, with comments he made on the dating show described as "crude" and "highly offensive".