A price war has broken out down under with the introduction of Richard Branson's new Australian domestic airline, Virgin Blue, which began flying on the popular 65-minute route between Sydney-Brisbane on Thursday for A$99 (£40).
Qantas, Ansett and another new private airline, Impulse, have been forced to follow suit, slashing their fares and bringing obvious commercial benefits to Sydney and Brisbane but more significantly to the cities' beautiful and less explored rural hinterlands.
More and more overseas tourists are visiting rural Australia; a recent report showed they spend nearly £1bn each year outside the cities. Towns such as Toowoomba in Queensland's fertile Darling Downs, and Broken Hill in outback New South Wales are key staging posts for overlanders and tour groups searching for the Real Australia - a land of wide-open spaces, pioneers, and rural hospitality.
There's a world of difference between the "country" and the "outback", as far as Australians are concerned. The former is the good farmland and rolling, verdant hills that stretch away from the coasts but stop short of the desert fringe. Outback is everything else - Australia's burning heart where eucalyp tus groves turn into wide expanses of salt bush, creeks lose their water and bronzed mountain ranges lie like the carcasses of long-dead dinosaurs across the desert floor.
By the time the Great Dividing Range reaches Queensland, its mountains have become hills and its crags softened into grassy knolls.
The Darling Downs is one of the most poetic landscapes in Australia, and was as far into the interior as most settlers risked going in the 1800s. Beyond here lie hostile outback plains of red dust.
Well-to-do Englishmen claimed vast tracts of this land, building homesteads and living like lords , dressing for dinner and riding to hounds . One of them, a timber merchant, settled on Listening Ridge, 15 minutes from Toowoomba, the commercial centre of the Downs, and built a house with views to a distant horizon.
Today, his descendants, Sue and Shirley Pechey, run it as a B&B. Guests stay in two cosy cabins, eat home-cooked meals and have several hundred square miles of stunning hill country to explore. Nearby is Crow's Nest National Park, one of the last spreads of original eucalyptus forest left in the Downs, and home to an assortment of Australia's comic wildlife, such as sugar gliders, blue-faced honeyeaters and platypus.
Getting there: Two to three hours' drive from Brisbane by road. McCafferty's Coaches tel: +131499) charge £6 one way. Holiday Autos (0870 400 0011 in UK) charge from £175 a week car hire.
What to do: Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers in September ,Garden Fest in April; historic buildings tour; Jondaryan Woolshed for shearing demonstrations and historical tours. National Parks: Bunya Mountains (former Aboriginal feasting site); Crow's Nest and Ravensbourne for wildlife and ancient woodland walks (call the Dept of Environment on 00 61 7 4639 4599).
Where to stay: Listening Ridge (00 61 7 4698 1424) charges £32 for a cabin sleeping four) or nearby Governor's Choice and Vineyard (00 61 7 4630 6101) charges £50 for cottage with spa sleeping four.
Where to eat: Dave's Seafood and Steak, Fibber Magee's Irish pub, in Toowoomba.
Further information: Queensland Tourism (UK), tel: 020-7240 0525; Toowoomba Tourism, tel: 00 61 7 4632 1988.
When silver, lead and zinc was uncovered in Broken Hill in the late 19th century, the beer flowed like a flash flood across the desert. Miners poured in from all over Australia and abroad. The town built 77 hotels to hold them. Now, it is foreign visitors who flock to here for a taste of pioneer heritage.
Broken Hill is the centre of the Accessible Outback, where visitors can experience life in the desert without giving up the comforts of home. There are mine tours; a host of art galleries and a peaceful sculpture garden in which to enjoy the sunset; Mutawintji National Park with ancient Aboriginal rock-carvings; and tranquil lakes at Menindee, with its flocks of exotic birds.
A day's drive north is the opal mining town of White Cliffs. A kangaroo shooter first stumbled over a dazzling opal here more than 100 years ago and men have come ever since to dig and live in holes in the ground.
One set of old workings has become the Dug Out Underground Motel, sculpted by Leon and Marge Hornby.
Getting there: From Sydney, Indian Pacific and the Ghan trains take approximately 18 hours and cost £100 return.
Greyhound coaches also take about 18 hours and cost £25 one-way.
Flights with Hazelton Ansett, 00 61 2 6393 11000, cost £194 for 21-day advance return from Sydney. 4WD needed for White Cliffs and Mutawintji.
What to do: Mine tours Broken Hill Tourism (00 61 8 8087 6077, email tourist@pcpro.net.au); Thankakali cultural centre to meet Aboriginal artists (00 61 8 8087 6111); Mutawintji National Park for rock paintings (00 61 8 8088 5933); opal mines in White Cliffs (Broken Hill Tourism for list); Sculpture Symposium for sunset (Broken Hill Tourism for gate key); Lakes nature tour (Geoff Looney 00 61 8 8091 4437).
General information: Tourism New South Wales (UK), tel: 020-7887 5003.
Where to stay: Miner's Cottages (Broken Hill Tourism for list). Overlander Motor Inn (00 61 8088 2566) charges £32 for a double room. The White Cliffs Dug Out (00 61 8 8091 6647) which charges £31 for a double.
Watch the world go by in booming Brisbane
This stretch of the Queensland coast put the fear of God into its first inhabitants. Convicts from Britain and Ireland deemed too dangerous to keep in the burgeoning colony of Sydney Cove were shipped north to an unknown place with an infernal climate. Being a few miles inland on the Brisbane River, it missed the coastal breezes.
Prisoners suffered inhuman accommodation and back-breaking labour in the steamy tropical heat. Neither they nor their gaolers could have dreamed that nearly 200 years later, thousands of people would crave this spot, its mangrove swamps and year-round sunshine.
For Brisbane is booming. Property prices are rocketing, businesses are flocking here to set up offices and hold conferences, and service industries can barely keep pace with the influx of holidaymakers.
The South Bank cultural complex on the Brisbane River has the fun and style of its London ancestor. Its exhibitions of international and contemporary Australian art and design are making the Sydney galleries keep a close eye on their northern rival.
The Botanical Gardens inhabit a loop of the river and make for a good early morning stroll. The French Renaissance architecture of Parliament House is a throwback to colonial times, as are many of the buildings in the city. A heritage trail takes in several of them and is a good starting point for visitors fresh off the plane.
The proximity of the city to the Great Barrier Reef, an hour's flight north, has added to its popularity. And the giant casino at the glitzy, gaudy holiday playground of the Gold Coast, two hours south by road, which has given the region the unwelcome nickname of BrisVegas, has boosted the number of visitors.
Possibly its greatest asset, however, is the lack of attitude. While Sydney glows with celebrity status and chutzpah, and Melbourne with aloof European style and chic, Brisbane is relaxed and unassuming. Palm trees shading riverside cafés rustle in the warm breezes. Elegant, colonial, Queenslander homes sport wide verandas made for lounging and watching the world go by.
Where to stay: The sandstone walls of the Conrad International (00 61 7 3306 8888, email: hotelres@conrad.com.au) originally housed the state government cabinet. Weekend packages cost £82 per room per night (B&B), weekdays £78.
The Manor Apartment Hotel (00 61 7 3229 2700) is in an art deco building near Queen St Mall, where one-bedroom apartments cost £60 on a B&B basis, two-bedroom apartments £90 (B&B for four).
Explorers' Inn (00 61 7 3211 3488) downtown is more basic but well regarded. Doubles cost £30.
Where to eat: Breakfast at Emporio Il Centro on the riverside, lunch at Indigo in New Farm, and dine out in style at E'cco downtown in Queen Street.
What to do: Walking, cycling or roller-blading tour - take the ferry from Riverside Centre on Eagle Street to Kangaroo Point and South Bank, which has excellent gallery and performance spaces; Botanical Gardens include a boardwalk through a mangrove swamp out over the Brisbane River; City Hall has a history of the former penal colony's development; learn to rock climb at Kangaroo Point on sandstone cliffs above the river; shop on Queen Street Mall.
Climate: Sub-tropical Brisbane is hot and humid from October to May (highs in the 90s) and mild at other times (highs in mid 70s).
