But things are not as they seem. We used to be the honeymoon state - all sun, sand, koalas and tourist weddings. Not any more. New Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show Queenslanders are divorcing as never before, bucking the national trend. The state had a 24.3 per cent rise in divorces last year. It was the only state to record an increase.

Why are Queenslanders calling it quits in increasing numbers? What's going on in the "beautiful one day, perfect the next" destination? We're traditionally considered more conservative. Yet we're bailing out and pulling the ripcord. Is living in paradise too much to live up to?

The quest for answers begins as all good journeys of discovery do, over a drink. I'm picking the brains of a savvy businessman friend. He's twice-divorced, so eminently qualified. He leans back, sucks on a Crown Lager. "Ah, yes. Divorce. From the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet."

Oops. I failed to recognise his cloak of raw, savage bitterness that many divorcees wrap around them. "Look, all I know is this. Opposites attract, but after marriage, opposites attack."

Marriage specialists cite common breakdown causes as infidelity, poor communication, financial problems, addictions and substance abuse and lack of conflict resolution skills. (Ok, hands up who ticked yes to most of those?) But it still doesn't answer why, despite divorce having all the appeal of a shootout between conjoined twins, Queenslanders are throwing back the covers and climbing out of the marital bed. We need to search for possible local causes.

It's daylight saving, or lack of it, says a smirking New South Welshman. "You Queenslanders don't have long afternoons of sunlight for winding down, sitting on the back steps chatting with your wife." Ok, I'm an Aussie bloke and happy to accept daylight saving does funny things to curtains and chooks, but contributing to marriage breakdowns?

Time to call in a real expert: a gay hairdresser. Twenty years in the business and what he doesn't know about a woman's mind isn't worth knowing. "It's the heat. Mid-summer at night with the sweaty sheets and droning mosquitoes, everyone's cranky and no one feels like lurve. Most essential marital aid in this state - airconditioning." Is love that feeble? Hit for six by the weather?

A north Queensland man, a sports fan, has another theory. He lays the blame squarely at the feet of our state's sporting teams and lack of trophies this year. "A man just doesn't feel right when his team has lost."

Another handy scapegoat could be the state's most high-profile political marriage - the fragile conservative Coalition. It doesn't know if it's Arthur or Martha. This on-again, off-again coupling of Bob Quinn and Lawrence Springborg is hardly a good example of solid devotion.

A mate believes misinformation fuels the divorce rate among his Queensland friends. If men knew the reality of separation, they'd try harder. "The 40-something male who leaves his wife often does so believing he's still 20 and can easily attract young females. It's a tragic tale of misunderstanding on his part. But one easily arrived at. Males have no idea they are getting old because their breasts remain reasonably firm and they never stop being interested in sex." But they are very wrong. And end up sitting in some little flat alone with a brand new mortgage, paying child support for their kids who hate them.

A proud Queenslander I know refuses to believe the divorce rate is a Queensland problem at all. It is, he announces confidently, the fault of some of the 2,300-a-week interlopers who move here each week from down south. They arrive, bust up and push out stats to high heaven. "They bring their problems in the removalist van."

This isn't so crazy a notion, says lecturer in psychology Dr. Suzie Sweeper. "That's just speculation but relocating is an incredibly stressful thing and maybe people move expecting only good times."

So we've blamed our divorce rate on the sunshine, blamed it on the moonlight, blamed it on the good times, blamed it on the pollies. What now seems important is how to stop the rot. How to put the pash back into passion.