Brisbane to Cairns Roadtrip - Britz

Six nights and 1,700 kilometres from Brisbane to Cairns in a campervan, up the Queensland coast with the reef offshore for most of it.

The Sunshine Coast comes first, then Hervey Bay, the jumping-off point for Fraser Island and a whale watching centre from July, and Bundaberg, where the rum distillery and the turtle rookery at Mon Repos sit a few minutes apart.

Rockhampton follows, which sits on the Tropic of Capricorn and claims the title of beef capital, then Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays, with Whitehaven Beach reached by boat. Bowen and Townsville come next, with Magnetic Island offshore, then Mission Beach and the Great Green Way through the sugar cane into Cairns.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. Seven days for 1,700 kilometres is a brisk pace on a coast with this much to stop for, so the reef trips need booking in advance and something inevitably gets skipped. Winter and spring are the better seasons, with stinger nets in place on the northern beaches through the summer months. Nothing on the route needs a 4WD, and the whole coast is well served with holiday parks, which take the pressure off booking ahead outside the school holidays. Anyone with more time would be better served by the ten-day version of the same coast, which allows a proper day on the reef.