Darwin to Brisbane across Outback Queensland - maui

Eleven nights and 4,135 kilometres from Darwin to Brisbane in a campervan, across the Top End and outback Queensland before dropping onto the coast.

Katherine comes first down the Stuart Highway, where Nitmiluk is a series of thirteen sandstone gorges cut by the Katherine River and walked or paddled in sections, then Daly Waters, whose pub is the sort of outback institution that people drive a long way to see, and Tennant Creek.

Camooweal marks the Queensland border, then Julia Creek and Hughenden out on the Flinders Highway, dinosaur country where an inland sea once covered everything and the fossil finds have been good enough to build museums around. Townsville brings the route back to the coast, then Bowen, Mackay, Rockhampton and Bundaberg down the Queensland shore, with the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef offshore and the turtle rookery at Mon Repos near the last of them, before Brisbane.

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 4,135 kilometres is a hard schedule, with the outback leg the long part: the towns are a couple of hundred kilometres apart and there is very little between them. Road trains need room and respect, and driving at dawn, dusk or after dark is where the animal strikes happen. The dry season from May to October is the window for the Top End. This is a one-way hire the width of two states, so a relocation fee is worth checking at booking.