NOEL BEDDOE has returned from wintering in tropical Cairns and he’s doing it again for a month next year.

There’s a lot to enjoy in Canberra when its cold.

I think of:

• The National Gallery, the informed explanations and privileged access to one of the great art collections of the world. 

• Enjoying a mulled wine and hot German sausage at the winter Christmas markets.

• The Viking Clap and Ricky leaping (and, occasionally, weeping) on the sidelines while The Raiders do their thing.

• Coffee and cake at Tilly’s before trawling the treasures in Michael’s Book Lore in Lyneham.

• Hunting for truffles on farms or in the markets.

There’s a lot to enjoy and then… and then… it does get quite boring, doesn’t it? All that coping with the task of staying warm month after month.

Millions of Australians take their break travelling to Asia and The Pacific – between them, Fiji, Vietnam, Bangkok, Phuket, Singapore, Bali received more than five million visits from Australians last year.

Tropical Australia received less than 40 per cent of that number. That journey has clear advantages: you don’t have to struggle through immigration and customs at both ends; flight times are briefer; we retain access to Australian medical provision and Australian law enforcement if there’s some sort of crisis, so that, travelling in Australia we don’t bother with the increasingly-expensive travel insurance, a necessity when going abroad.

Tropical Australia – Cairns for example – offers various tourist pursuits – continual columns of tour boats head out to The Reef for sightseeing, snorkelling, visits to islands; The Cairns Esplanade is a strip of tourist-aimed cafes, restaurants, cocktail lounges with shaded verandahs and Coral Sea views; trinket sellers.

The wealthy can take a helicopter ride up the coast and back. And then the heart of tourist Cairns is the remarkable swimming lagoon, half a hectare of treated water from the Coral Sea, free to use, lifeguards, curated picnic areas and barbecue hot plates on three sides.

The high-end boutiques that once lined the streets near the ferry terminal now congregate in the remarkable Cairns City complex.

A million Australians live north of The Tropic of Capricorn. They have created remarkable cities worth examining for their own unique charm: drive a little past the weatherboard Queenslanders on the fringe of Cairns and you travel between paddocks thick with sugar cane or the Cairns aquarium.

The town museum is filled with photographs and exhibits that speak of the tough time original white settlers had in establishing a life in that climate, the task of manhandling 80 kilo sacks of sugar into the bodies of ships in plus century heat. 

However, I couldn’t find much reference to the savage battles fought in defence of their land by the Yielinji people after 1870, nor to the use of slave labour from The Pacific in early sugar cane-growing days. 

I’m a fan of the century-old Croc Bar in The Grand Hotel, with its menu offering marinated crocodile skewers. 

A 40-minute trip by bus reaches the stylish beach side suburb of Palm Cove. 

You can visit the Cairns Botanical Gardens for free, use the boardwalk through native rainforest and enjoy the exotic bird life or catch the vintage train up the 400 metres of the escarpment, past amazing views of waterfalls and gorges to the funny little township of Kuranda.

There are still delays on the narrow Captain Cook Highway up to the Big Money enclave or Port Douglas while brave, skilful people try to repair the damage done two years ago when Cyclone Jasper dropped more than three metres of rain on the area in a week.

Average maximum temperature for the month we have just spent up there was 28 degrees.

Thinking of going? Contact individual resorts and discuss terms – I spoke to Sam, a member of the management team in Cascade Gardens for a reduction of $50 a night by comparison with the best price on booking apps to less than $160 for a beautifully-refurbished, one-bedroom unit.

We’re charmed by the easy pace and physical beauty of Cairns – we’ll go back for a month next winter.

Novelist Noel Beddoe has twice been awarded by The Literature Board of The Australia Council for the Arts.