Cairns Tablelands, Undara and the Daintree - Apollo

Nine nights and 896 kilometres in a loop from Cairns in a campervan, inland to the lava tubes and back out to the Daintree, with four stay days.

Josephine Falls comes first south of Cairns, where the creek runs over granite slabs into pools, then Paronella Park with a stay day, a Spanish-style castle and gardens built by a Catalan immigrant in the 1930s beside a waterfall, now half reclaimed by the rainforest.

Undara follows with another stay day, out in the savannah, 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. Millaa Millaa comes next on the Atherton Tableland, with the waterfall circuit nearby, then Cape Tribulation with a stay day, where the Daintree rainforest runs down to the reef coast, and Port Douglas with a fourth.

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. Ten days for 896 kilometres is a slow pace with half the nights spent in one place or another, which is right for a region where the rainforest and the reef each take a day. The Undara tubes can only be entered on a guided tour and need booking. The Daintree River crossing is by cable ferry, and the Bloomfield Track beyond Cape Tribulation is unsealed and four-wheel drive only. The dry season from May to October is the window, since the wet brings road closures and stingers in the water.