Post Office in Cairns

Remains of the colonial era similatr to this Post Office can be found in all towns in the Northern Queensland (and Australians seem to love white cars - as you can see).

The 18th and the 19th centuries were centuries of men. Country music from that time is not about love, but solely about heroism and suffering. The men's part of the pub - called the bar - didn't have a ladies' toilet and there was a separate area reserved for women called the lounge. (I don't want to generalise, but it seems to me that even now Australian society is strictly divided between "boys" and "girls". Boys don't interfere with girls' business and vice versa.)

Cairns today is a busy tourist resort, however, towns like Bundaberg, Rockhampton or Mackay offer more of a "real" experience. (Bundaberg's got a brewery.) The distance between Rockhampton and Mackay is 350 km. The total number of cars we passed on the way was seven, radio stations played music that my grandmother used to call modern (we ended up singing because it was a better option) and the only plant that we could see along the highway was sugar cane - which is the major agricultural product of this area, although in Northern Queensland they plant things like mango, coffee or even rice.

Side streets in Mackay were as broad as highways in Germany. When we arrived, the shops were already closed and the town of 25 thousand people was totally dead until the sun went down. Most women I saw in the pubs were taller and bigger than all male members of my family, they didn't wear much clothing, had bleached hair and a tatoo. Another face of Australia. I loved it! It was so real!