EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

It doesn't take long to look around the city. The Tropic Marker , 3km south of the river at Rockhampton's southern entrance, is just a spire informing you of your position at 23° 26' 30" S. And, apart from a riverside stroll to take in the turn-of-the-twentieth-century architecture or the brown-stained boulders in mid-stream that gave the city its name, there's very little to detain you.

About 5km north of town on the Bruce Highway, the Dreamtime Cultural Centre (daily 10am-3.30pm; tours with an Aboriginal guide from 10.30am; $14) offers a good introduction to central Queensland's Aboriginal heritage. Inside, chronological and Dreamtime histories are intermingled, with a broad dissection of the archeology and mythology of Carnarvon Gorge. Outside, surrounded by woodland, gunyahs (shelters of bark and branches) and stencil art, you'll find an unlikely walk-through dugong, and the original stone rings of a bora ground which marked the main camp of the Darumbal, whose territory reached from the Keppel Bay coastline inland to Mount Morgan. The tour also introduces plant usage, plus boomerang, dance and didgeridoo skills - audience participation is definitely encouraged.