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.

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".

The man Naponi married tried to kill her more than once. Even after he was finally taken to a psychiatric hospital, Naponi faced another battle: convincing her community to believe her story.

Not many music festivals would encourage fans to get naked for their events, but the Gympie Music Muster in south-east Queensland is doing just that.

Car and house washing are off limits in Queensland's Southern Downs as residents are urged to use no more than 100 litres a day.

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.

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.

For a time in the 1960s, a natural spring at the foot of the Great Dividing Range was home to Australia's largest swimming pool and legendary "mini-Woodstock" rock concerts.

Beth McEwan's world was shattered when her husband Grant took his own life last year. She says he fell through the cracks of the mental health system in their regional city and is calling for services to bridge the gap between hospital and home.

Another Queensland dairy farmer forced to send his herd to the meatworks says it may not have come to that if major supermarkets had passed on milk price increases.

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.

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.

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.

The simple genetic "heel-prick" test for newborns is saving the lives of children in New South Wales and the ACT, but elsewhere parents say their children aren't being afforded the same chance of survival in the face of rare diseases like Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

A blogger makes legal history by successfully suing a sitting politician senator Malcolm Roberts over the 2016 dual-citizenshipsaga.

A Sunshine Coast man has been charged with rape and secretly recording a number of his female flatmates using hidden cameras, over the course of five years.

Gold Coast couple Nicole Wilson and Mark Wilson ventured 1600km to marry at the Birdsville music festival

Tourism operators throughout Australia are being told to focus on relationships rather than destinations, or risk repeating the mass-tourism mistakes of Barcelona and Venice.

A Queensland dairy farmer says the only way the industry will survive is if people pay $1.50 a litre, with production costs skyrocketing in the drought.

Australians' growing appetite for exotic plant-based foods boosts business for a no-till regenerative farm that's setting trends in some of south-east Queensland's fanciest restaurants.

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.

Search crews looking for 14-year-old Michael Ryan, who disappeared a fortnight ago on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, find a body, with police saying it is believed to be the missing teenager.

Fast rail, a high frequency Metro, and a duplicate M1, are just some of the multi-billion-dollar "fixes" aimed at getting South East Queensland moving again. But is it enough to solve the transport woes?

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?

Leisl Born says she was shocked to realise several dozen dead birds sat among the ash and debris that washed up on her local beach following the Bribie Island bushfires.

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 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.

Video released by Queensland police shows the efforts of some officers helping to evacuate the Peregian area during wild bushfires on the Sunshine Coast on Monday.

Police allege two teenagers gathered in bushland on Monday afternoon and deliberately lit the blaze, which gutted one home and tore through Sunshine Coast bushland.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

At Eumundi, in Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland, 43 per cent of people identify as having no religion, and now the town's last church has called it a day.