Gulf Savannah and Outback Queensland Loop from Cairns - Apollo

Fourteen nights and 2,521 kilometres in a loop from Cairns in a campervan, west to the Gulf of Carpentaria and back by the outback towns.

Undara comes first with a stay day, 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, then Cobbold Gorge with another, a sandstone slot two metres wide in places, visited by boat with freshwater crocodiles in it.

Karumba follows on the Gulf with a stay day, the only place on the Queensland coast where the sun sets over the sea, with barramundi and prawn boats working out of the river mouth. Cloncurry comes next, where the flying doctor service began, then Julia Creek with another stay day, and Hughenden in dinosaur country, before Townsville on the coast with a fifth, and the run north to Cairns.

The camper and the day-by-day plan come from Apollo, 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. Fifteen days for 2,521 kilometres is a fair pace with five stay days, which is what makes this a tour rather than a transit. Winter is the season, since summer inland is punishing and the Gulf country floods in the wet. The towns are a long way apart with very little between them, so fuel and water want topping up at each. Cobbold Gorge is on a working cattle station and the boat trips need booking.