weather

Tropical cyclones

It is claimed that tropical cyclones are the most feared weather phenomena to affect Australia.

Track of Cyclone Agnes, March 1956

1 March 1957

2 March 2011

Walkabout

Track of Cyclone Agnes, March 1956 (from Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology records, Brisbane), Walkabout, March 1957. Collection of the Centre for the Government of Queensland

Survival: how the landscape impacts on people

Queensland’s historical landscape encapsulates the tension between threat and survival.

Average annual number of tropical cyclones

1 January 2006

27 October 2010

Australian Government

Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Government

Average annual number of tropical cyclones using 36 years of data (1969-2006 tropical cyclone seasons), Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Government 2006

Tropical cyclones, 1906-2006

1 January 2006

27 October 2010

Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Government

The path of tropical cyclones in eastern Australia from 1906 to 2006. Each coloured line represents a cyclone. Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Government

The Dame in the tropics: Nellie Melba

The young ‘Nellie Melba’ moved with her family to Queensland in 1881, living around the Mackay sugar region until fleeing the tropics in 1883 to launch her singing career in Melbourne.

Woodford Folk Festival fashions, 2009. The fashion espoused by the attendants of the Woodford Folk Festival is especially distinctive. Dreadlocks, henna, kaftans, tie-dye and beads are typical, while eye-catching colour is a predominant feature of the peopled festival landscape. The alternative fashion sense becomes infectious over the course of the festival: South American seed pod hats, Thai fishermen’s pants or Arabian harem pants and Muslim elfin leather shoes are often key purchases for first-time festival goers.

Collection of Ana Stevenson

Bicycling through Brisbane, 1896

The bicycle revolutionised movement through the landscape for hundreds of avant-garde Queenslanders during the closing years of the nineteenth century.

The Queen in Queensland, 1954

Although many members of the British Royal family had visited Queensland since Queen Victoria reportedly decreed her own title to the name of the Colony in 1859, Queen Elizabeth II was the first re