wich way to go

Keep west, Cairns is actually west of Bourke, also flatter and less traffic, minimal amount of towns to slow you down.

Just a small thought...40 kms to the north of Charters Towers is a free camp on a river, called Fletcher River (I THINK that's its name). It is in CAW so you can look it up. There is limited mobile phone reception, if you have an external aerial on the van.

The camp is truly delightful, although it can get pretty busy at this tme of the year.

Chris

Check out this websit - Caravaning and Camp Assoc. and look at the The Outback Discovery Trail - Sydney to Cairns safari - this one takes about a month, but it has fantastic information, places to stay, see and things to do.

http://www.tournsw.com.au/safari.php

Alison

Hi Archar,
Can't help with fuel costs but you can check online and find the location of all the garages that sell LPG along your planned route.

You may already know this - if so please disregard. I find it very helpful when planning a trip.

Note that occasionally it is not dead accurate.
I found that it was wrong in one instance over a 6000k trip.

Regards,
Bruce.

Gday Archar,

We did Melb to Cairns some years ago.

We went via Hillston, Cobar, Bourke, Charlieville, Longreach(Stockman's Hall of Fame, etc) then detoured to Winton to see dinosaur footprints at Lark Quarry.

From there it was relatively direct to Cairns via Hughenden ("Muttaburrasaurus" dinosaur), and then "Lava Tubes" west of the Atherton tablelands(can't remember the name of the place - someone else????).

Our 8 year old loved it.

Peter

archar,

we're off up there next week.

Roma, Charters Towers. The only way to go mate. We've got kids with us and they're good travellers. It's pretty good these days cos they play with their little gadgets and generally keep themselves occupied. Problem is when you keep stuffing their faces wth drink and they're peeing every 5 minutes. Give em brekky, morno and lunch. If you train them to want to stop every hour, they will. We're setting off from the Sydney area and will take 3 days for the trip. You've probably got an extra day's travel - if it was me, I'd do two days straight, a day off, and another two days travel. Done.