Australian Ballet dancers Joseph Romancewicz and Belle Urwin in a rehearsal room at the Sydney Opera House. Telstra Let’s Dance provides rare opportunities for country kids to learn directly from The Australian Ballets talented artists and go behind the scenes of life as a professional ballet dancer,an opportunity rarely given to kids in regional areas. Sydney. April 24,2025. Photo:Louise Kennerley

‘Take down the walls’:The innovative program bringing ballet to the bush

Hundreds of children in regional Australia will have the opportunity to learn from the Australian Ballet’s teachers and dancers.

  • Cindy Yin

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Lismore locals are buying in the area as it recovers floods in 2022.

‘Highly desirable’:NSW tree-change towns where house prices boomed

House prices across regional NSW have recorded the strongest gains in a year,and several towns rose by double digits.

  • Alice Uribe
Luke Alexandrou and James Leys are the fourth generation in their family to contribute to the Western District display at the Royal Easter Show.

Meet the 22-year-old farmers entering this 125-year-old competition

Cousins Luke Leys and James Alexandrou are the fourth generation in their family to work on the Sydney Royal Easter Show regional displays.

  • Frances Howe
Christiaan and Annmarie Sloane in Melbourne ahead of the Wimmera Steampunk Festival in Dimboola.

Fire nearly destroyed this town. Months later,it’s lacing up its corset and polishing its pocket watch

This weekend’s Wimmera Steampunk Festival is set to be the biggest yet,and that’s a big deal for host town Dimboola,which came close to being destroyed by a bushfire in January.

  • Alexander Darling
On with the parade:Carolyn Holmes,8,front,pictured among three generations of the Lougoon family in Bendigo.

How a 125-metre dragon brings the Lougoon family together each year

Bendigo’s Easter parade doubles as a reunion for the Lougoon family,who are descended from a 19th century Chinese immigrant.

  • Carolyn Webb
Hessians on the Field contestant Alice Williams,15.

They are the Potato Festival’s best dressed. Think Fashions on the Field – but itchier

It’s harvest time in Thorpdale,but the town chips in to celebrate the humble spud with custom-made clothes,a potato-picking race and a speed-eating mash competition.

  • Carolyn Webb
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Sarah Wheeler during her six-month solo 5500km outback trek on horseback in the town of Nyngan,New South Wales,

Sarah rode 5500 kilometres on horseback for her parents. This is what she learnt

After losing her mother to gastrointestinal cancer,Sarah Wheeler rode for nine months,talking to people she met along the way about grief.

  • Nick Newling
Happy result:Norma and Curtis Hancock with Save Our Store campaigners including Christine Mierisch,seated,front right,and Liz Monty,standing left,in green.

Norma is almost 90. She just bought a beloved general store in regional Victoria

The heart of the town of Guildford will beat again when the century-old store reopens this weekend.

  • Carolyn Webb

A country town’s ‘little treasure’ gets a new lease of life

“It was never going to fall down on my watch,” says Alison Wren of the picturesque 115-year-old church in Victoria’s north-east that she has restored.

  • Carolyn Webb
Peta Bradley wearing the racing suit she wore at the World Ice Swimming Championships,on her property in Armatree,NSW.

Peta trains in a frozen cattle trough. She just became a swimming world champion

Hailing from a tiny town in regional NSW,Peta Bradley is an unlikely ice swimming champion. She says the pain is what motivates her.

  • Frances Howe