The small SA town of Lucindale prepares to balloon to 40 times the size of its population as it hosts a free concert drawing in music-lovers and road-trippers from across the country.

Australia's top musicians joined a 15,000-strong crowd in Lucindale for triple j's One Night Stand, marking the small town's biggest day ever. Some of the best moments happened off-stage.

With the help of 15,000 festival goers at the weekend's triple j One Night Stand donating more than $22,000, Lucindale's pool is now weeks away from opening.

Just eight months from forming, South Australian punk band Chelsea Manor found themselves playing before 15,000 screaming people at their first live gig.

While dishes at Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek take the credit for beaming the vision of the first steps on the Moon to the world, staff known as 'Creekers' at Cooby Creek in Queensland say it was their work that made the whole project possible.

A festival that started covering bare CBD trees in knitted jumpers has helped to lift spirits during the drought.

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.

A Melbourne man who killed his former wife with an electrical cord and then fled to Queensland is jailed for 25 years for what the judge described as a crime of "extravagant drawn-out violence".

Every year for the past two decades, the tiny Queensland town of Weengallon has played host to huge crowds of women dressed in pink who gather for a good cause.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk visits drought-ravaged Granite Belt, where dam levels are so low water could run out by December. She vows she will not allow that to happen but needs a written request for help from council.

Hayfa Adi was abducted by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq, held for more than two years and repeatedly raped, beaten and traded like livestock. Now living in Australia, she is trying to find out what happened to her husband.

Ballandean rural firefighter Aaron Cox whose viral photo captured the hearts of Queenslanders following a horror bushfire emergency says he's glad the image gave people an avenue to thank the wider firefighting community.

As Queensland's Darling Downs continues to experience one of its worst droughts on record, a scientist and a horticulturalist have developed a recycled watering system to keep their garden alive.

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.

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.

In a small town in country Australia an elderly man is praying he won't live to 91, like his father. He doesn't have the money, and it feels like debt is closing in on him.

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.

A combination of drought, disease and concerted eradication efforts have seen a huge drop in Queensland's feral rabbit population to their lowest levels in more than 30 years.

A company working on the Shell-owned Queensland Gas Corporation project tells job applicants they will not be accepted until they submit to blood tests to check if they are at risk of heart attack, high cholesterol and other conditions.

Like anyone at the end of their working life, when Matilda the Commonwealth Games mascot retired she had one thing in mind travel. Curious Brisbane tracks her adventures these past 36 years, and reveals where she can be found today.

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 Sunshine Coast woman is duped by an "online lover" into handing over her bank details, allowing scammers to deposit $6 million they had just swindled from a South Korean business, police say.

A 23-year-old Wide Bay man is charged with dozens of offences, after allegedly leading police on a 200-kilometre pursuit, carjacking several people, and stabbing a woman earlier this month.

Authorities reveal the residents of a Sunshine Coast aged care facility were trapped inside as a dangerous bushfire approached this week, but they were kept safe by a protective ring of firefighters.

As urban density intensifies in Australia's major cities, renegades are fighting to replace the greenery that has been lost, writes Natalie Vella.

Residents in a small Queensland town are still counting their blessings 12 months after a bushfire destroyed more than 12,000 hectares of pasture, and now they are preparing to be in drought before the decade is out.

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".

Mark Wadeson was sleeping rough and battling cancer and overzealous council workers now his life is looking up and he's keen to be a voice for the underdogs.

An annual health check of Queensland's Mary River records E. coli higher than recommended levels at two popular swimming spots.

A Sunshine Coast couple who launched an ambitious campaign to pay for their dream wedding using Queensland's container refund scheme lock in a venue, celebrant and catering all paid for by the initiative.

As water supplies run low for towns reliant on the Darling River in western NSW, the Government says it has drought-proofed Broken Hill with a 270-kilometre pipeline from the Murray River.

A grazier in the far west of New South Wales is up to the challenge of the drought, growing his beard till he beats the big dry.

Graziers have turned to the help of a landscape ecologist to battle severe drought in rain-starved areas of far western New South Wales.

As a federal election and what should be the southern wet season approach, attention is returning to the drought. So where are we at?

For the first time in 15 years, cattle are grazing the roadsides of the Moyne Shire, in Victoria's south-west.

A fourth-generation grazier, who is selling the family property, says it could take a decade of uncommonly good conditions for pastoralists to recover from the drought in far-west NSW.

Extreme drought conditions have all but dried up the Barwon River in western NSW, and now the unprecedented dry has exposed an extraordinary piece of maritime history.

NSW's water woes extend beyond the farm gate and its impact on the local environment water is intimately linked to the strength of regional economies. And many are struggling.

From 85 millimetres of rain in a year to more than 50mm in a day, widespread Easter rain raises spirits from Bourke to Menindee.

Heavy rainfall across south-west New South Wales has provided some farmers with much-needed relief, many measuring the best falls they have seen in over two years.

For keen rugby league player Owen Whyman, times are tough enough in the Darling River town of Wilcannia without losing the game he looks forward to each week.

In the shadow of mass fish kills at the start of the year, residents of Menindee in NSW are now worried for the rich and rare birdlife that relies on the area to breed.