Tucked away in bushland and fenced off with barbed wire is an inconspicuous military training zone that is off-limits to the public.
Residents living not far away at Tin Can Bay and Rainbow Beach can hear echoing booms and rumbling sounds of heavy artillery in the distance.
For newcomers to Queensland's Wide Bay-Burnett region, it may come as a surprise to feel small earth tremors or watch their windows shake from time to time.
Much like the Shoalwater Bay training area in central Queensland and the Kokoda Barracks in the upper Coomera River Valley, the Wide Bay-Burnett is home to Camp Kerr, a military training area spanning 22,000 hectares.
Getting past the security checkpoint and deep in the bushland, a flurry of activity is underway as soldiers in combat gear and armed with machine guns navigate through concrete buildings in an urban layout.
This is Exercise Diamond Strike, where the Australian Army's 7th Brigade is putting its skills and knowledge to the test.
Royal Australian Regiment 8th/9th Battalion operations officer Ryan Bell said the annual war fighting exercise replicated real-life combat scenarios.
"The objective of the exercise is to clear a threat force from the urban centre and secure it in preparation to hand over to a host nation," Major Bell said.
"Training in an environment like this allows us to create a full immersive environment where soldiers train at every level.
"From those at the forward edge of battle to those that are caregivers and our medical system that will evacuate the wounded and treat them at a safe location."
About 500 soldiers took part in the exercise.
The soldiers used non-lethal, paint-based and blank rounds of ammunition.
"They require teamwork and close communication to understand where everybody is and what the objectives are," Major Bell said.
"We're hoping that these soldiers will take away experience, resilience, and an understanding of what is required of them in the future."
The exercise started at Wellcamp in Toowoomba several weeks ago with air landings of battle group infantry from Brisbane, before moving to the Wide Bay for the joint land combat component, which finished this week.
The 8th/9th Battalion is a unit in the 7th Brigade.
Major Bell said the exercise was important to demonstrate the soldiers were "ready for any mission, anytime, anywhere".
Now and then
Wide Bay historian and former member of D Company 9th Battalion, Lindsay Titmarsh, said he followed military exercises with great interest.
He remembered the first time he set foot on Camp Kerr decades ago.
"We went down there for the annual camp in early 1970 and when we got there — there wasn't much there," he said.
"I can assure you all we had was a shed with a water tank just to supply water.
"We had to take everything with us, tents, cooking facilities and medical."
Mr Titmarsh recounted a story of the time the army transported centurion tanks from Puckapunyal in Victoria by rail in 1964.
"They were loaded onto landing craft heavy vessels in Brisbane, they had four tanks each and dropped them off at Norman Point, Tin Can Bay," he said.
"Now I don't know whether it was planned or not to drop these things off in the middle of a wet season, but it happened.
He said most of them were bogged.
"It took them days to get to Camp Kerr from the shores," he said.
"They wouldn't have had to have dug trenches after that, the tracks were about two-foot deep."
Mr Titmarsh said he couldn't believe his eyes at the changes when he toured Camp Kerr more than four decades later.
"There was an air-conditioned office, bitumen roads, everything was there they had all the facilities," he said.
"It's a very important facility to the Australian Army."
