Family Roadtrip from Sydney to Cairns - Britz

Nine nights and 2,922 kilometres from Sydney to Cairns in a campervan, up the east coast with an inland start.

The Hunter Valley comes first, the oldest wine region in Australia, planted in the 1820s, then Port Stephens, where the dunes behind Anna Bay are the largest on the New South Wales coast and dolphins are resident in the bay.

Byron Bay follows at the most easterly point of the mainland, then Noosa Heads on the Sunshine Coast with its headland national park. Rockhampton comes next on the Tropic of Capricorn, then Airlie Beach for the Whitsundays and Whitehaven Beach, reached by boat, and Townsville with Magnetic Island offshore, before the run north to Cairns.

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. Ten days for 2,922 kilometres is a real pace, so the days are long and the reef and island trips need booking in advance. The route is sealed throughout and well served with holiday parks. Winter and spring are the better seasons, with stinger nets on the northern beaches through the summer months. Anyone with a fortnight rather than ten days should take the same coast more slowly, since the Whitsundays and the reef are the parts that suffer first when the schedule tightens. A one-way hire between Sydney and Cairns is a common enough arrangement that vehicle availability is rarely the constraint.