Overlanders Way - Britz

Six nights and 1,197 kilometres from Cairns to Mount Isa in a campervan, inland across outback Queensland on the Overlanders Way.

Townsville comes first on the coast, then the route turns inland to Porcupine Gorge, called the little Grand Canyon locally: a sandstone gorge cut more than a hundred metres deep with a pyramid of banded rock standing in the riverbed.

Hughenden and Richmond follow in fossil country, where an inland sea covered this land in the Cretaceous and the museums hold marine reptiles dug out of the surrounding paddocks, including one of the most complete plesiosaur fossils found in Australia. Julia Creek and Cloncurry come next, the latter holding the record for the hottest day ever measured in the country, and Mount Isa closes the route, a mining city of twenty thousand people with almost nothing else for hundreds of kilometres.

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. Seven days for 1,197 kilometres is comfortable, and the route is sealed throughout. This is outback driving rather than coastal touring, with long empty stretches and roadhouses rather than towns. Winter is the sensible season, since summer temperatures inland regularly pass forty degrees and camper air conditioning only works while the engine is running. The fossil museums at Richmond and Hughenden are the surprise on this route: both are small-town operations holding specimens of international significance, found by farmers on their own land.