Barrier Reef Roaming

Seventeen nights down the Queensland coast in a motorhome, from Cairns to Brisbane, with the flights included.

Cairns takes the first night in a hotel, then Port Douglas for three, which is the base for both the outer reef and the Daintree, where the oldest continuously surviving rainforest on earth runs down to the sea: an included cruise goes out to the reef itself.

Mission Beach follows, with miles of beach and rainforest behind it, then Airlie Beach, the mainland base for the Whitsundays, with catamaran and speedboat trips to Whitehaven Beach and a helicopter flight available. Rockhampton comes next by way of Eungella, the largest rainforest in Queensland and about the best place in Australia to see a wild platypus. Hervey Bay follows, where the whale watching between July and October is as good as any in the country, then Rainbow Beach for an all-terrain day tour of K’gari, the largest sand island in the world, taking in 75 Mile Beach, the dingoes and Lake McKenzie, with Noosa before Brisbane.

Flights, a night in a hotel, thirteen nights of maui motorhome hire sleeping up to four with zero-excess insurance, the outer reef cruise and the K’gari day tour are included. Eighteen days for this coast is a comfortable pace with three nights at Port Douglas. The dry winter months are the season, since summer brings heavy rain and stingers in the water. No wildlife sighting can be promised, and the K’gari tour is run in a four-wheel drive rather than the motorhome.