Queensland Outback - Britz

Five nights and 2,335 kilometres from Brisbane to Townsville in a campervan, inland on the Matilda Way rather than up the coast.

Goondiwindi comes first on the New South Wales border, a cotton and wheat town on the Macintyre, then Cunnamulla in the mulga country, where the artesian basin supplies the bore water and the pub has outlasted most of its competition.

Tambo follows, one of the oldest towns in western Queensland, then Longreach, which is the point of the trip: the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and the Qantas Founders Museum sit opposite one another, Qantas having started there in 1920 with two aircraft and a shed. Hughenden comes next on the Flinders Highway, with Porcupine Gorge nearby, before the run down to Townsville.

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. Six days for 2,335 kilometres means long days, and this is a drive through country rather than a sequence of sights. The roads are sealed but narrow in places, with road trains and wandering stock on them. Winter is the only comfortable season, and the outback towns hold their race meetings and festivals then, which is worth checking against the dates. Longreach deserves a full day rather than an overnight, since the two museums there take several hours between them and both are better than their remote setting suggests.