Overlander's Way: Cairns to Mount Isa - Apollo

Nine nights and 2,890 kilometres in a loop from Cairns in a campervan, down the coast and then west along the Overlander’s Way.

Townsville comes first with a stay day, with Magnetic Island offshore, where koalas live wild in the eucalypts and most of the island is national park, then the climb inland onto the dry country.

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. Hughenden and Richmond come next in dinosaur country, where an inland sea once covered everything and both towns have built museums around the fossil finds. Julia Creek and Cloncurry carry the route west, the second where the flying doctor service began, then Mount Isa, one of the most productive single mines in the world, with the long return to Cairns over the final days.

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 2,890 kilometres is a hard schedule and the return leg is the long part of it. Winter is the season out here, since summer temperatures inland are punishing. The towns are a couple of hundred kilometres apart with very little between them, so fuel and water want topping up at each one, and road trains need room and respect. Driving at dawn, dusk and after dark is where the animal strikes happen. The loop format avoids a one-way relocation fee.