I won’t lie and say I missed the hot Mount Isa summer.

Even though I was in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales where it gets hot around the holiday season, I felt the weather was cool in comparison having just sweltered through my first Mount Isa Christmas.

Indeed when I climbed Mt Warning near the NSW-Queensland border during my break to see the dawn it was decidedly chilly at the summit despite it being early January.

The clouds wrapped around the mountain making any view downward impossible and the temperature plummeted.

My daughter who accompanied me on the climb seemed to think it was my fault (and let’s face it, parents are held responsible for every thing that might go wrong in their offsprings’ lives) and I hadn’t the heart to tell her that the premise under which I brought her there (ie that Mt Warning is the first place to see the dawn on mainland Australia) wasn’t even true.

I was corrected by a sign at the summit which says this “common perception” is only true in winter.

In summer, I learned, the first place on the mainland to see the dawn is Cape Howe on the NSW-Victoria border.

That was my geography lesson for the holiday, assuming there is any dawn to be seen.

But it was still fun to climb a mountain in the dark and the weather was lovely when we descended for a swim at Kingscliff beach later that morning.

That and other beach excursions to Yamba and Bribie Island will satisfy my ocean craving for another few months.

Now it’s back to the different but no less impressive beauty of the red dirt and the outback.

It is crucial that in what the Queensland Premier has designated the year of Outback Tourism we see it for the wonderful place it is.

It is a message the North West Star will get behind as the months go by.

Thank you to Samantha Walton and Melissa Coleman (North) for holding the fort while I was away – Derek Barry