Gippsland Getaway - Britz

Four nights and 1,340 kilometres in a loop from Melbourne in a campervan, through Gippsland and out to the far eastern corner of Victoria.

Ninety Mile Beach comes first, one of the longest uninterrupted beaches in the world, which separates the Gippsland Lakes from the sea with the coastal park behind it.

Mallacoota follows in the far corner, surrounded by Croajingolong National Park, a stretch of coast with almost no development on it and a UNESCO biosphere listing to keep it that way. Cape Conran and Marlo come next, then Metung on the lakes, and Tarra Bulga National Park inland, where the mountain ash and the tree ferns make a rainforest that feels nothing like the rest of the state. Wilsons Promontory closes the loop at the southernmost tip of mainland Australia.

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. Five days for 1,340 kilometres means real driving days, and the eastern leg out to Mallacoota is the part most visitors skip. Campsites inside Wilsons Promontory are balloted in peak season, so that one wants booking well before the camper is collected. The reward for the mileage is a coastline almost nobody drives: between Lakes Entrance and the New South Wales border there are stretches with no settlement at all, and the water at Cape Conran is as good as anything further north.