Queensland's Great Tropical Drive - maui

Eleven nights and 1,936 kilometres in a loop from Cairns in a campervan, north to Cooktown, inland to the lava tubes and back up the reef coast.

Port Douglas comes first, with the Daintree beyond it, where the oldest continuously surviving rainforest on earth runs down to the sea, then Cooktown, named for the repairs Cook made there after the Endeavour struck the reef in 1770.

Mareeba and Ravenshoe carry the route onto the Atherton Tablelands, cooler and greener country behind the coast, then Undara Volcanic National Park, where lava from an eruption around one hundred and ninety thousand years ago drained through its own cooled crust and left tubes long enough to walk through. Charters Towers follows, a gold town that was briefly the second largest settlement in Queensland and still has the stock exchange building to prove it, then Townsville, Ingham, Cardwell and Mission Beach up the coast before Innisfail and Cairns.

The camper and the day-by-day plan come from maui, 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. Twelve days for 1,936 kilometres is a comfortable pace and leaves room for a reef day and a rainforest day at either end. The Undara tubes can only be entered on a guided tour and need booking. The Bloomfield Track north of the Daintree is unsealed and four-wheel drive only, so the sealed inland route to Cooktown is the one a camper takes. The dry season from May to October is the window: the wet brings heavy rain, road closures and stingers in the water.