With more than 78,000 residents, Mackay’s population is younger than the State average, at the same time, some of the Council’s outlying mining towns rank among Australia’s wealthiest. Covering an area of 2,820 square kilometres, Council has 100 square kilometres of islands including Brampton, Keswick, St Bees and Lindeman.
Mackay’s diverse and beautiful area offers a variety of lifestyles from close urban settlement to village living, small area sugar cane farms to a seaside retreat or rural residential living in spectacular valleys surrounded by rainforest.
Mayor Julie Boyd sums up why visitors from far and wide take home great memories of Mackay with the following.
“They remember us from a visit to a cane farm and a sugar mill, for the rainbow lorikeets chattering in the royal, palms at dusk. They remember a flight to an atoll on the Great Barrier Reef, a day of line fishing in our river estuary, of coral viewing, rainforest exploring or relaxing by a pool at a tourist resort. They remember a drive through the Pioneer Valley to Eungella where through windows in the rainforest, they looked down on a patchwork of shadow and sunlight, green, blue and gold, a river valley stretching to the sea.”
