The The Great Tropical Drive is a 7-day, 900 km loop from Cairns by campervan. Any 2WD campervan is fine - it's rated moderate. Best in Autumn (Mar-May) or Winter (Jun-Aug). Budget from about A$1,200 per person, plus roughly A$216 in fuel.
Some road trips give you one great landscape. This one gives you three, and links them with a week of easy driving. In a single loop out of Cairns you snorkel over the Great Barrier Reef, walk beneath rainforest that has been growing for 180 million years, and climb into misty tableland hills strung with waterfalls and crater lakes. It is a rare thing - two World Heritage areas, the reef and the Daintree, close enough to visit in the same trip - and a campervan is the most natural way to string them together.
Seven days is enough to do it justice without hurrying. The main roads are sealed and well-kept, the towns are close together, and the only real decision is how far north you push: turn around at Cape Tribulation in a 2WD, or take the legendary Bloomfield Track to Cooktown if you’ve got a 4WD and an appetite for creek crossings.
Morning drifting over coral gardens off Port Douglas, afternoon on a boardwalk through the world’s oldest rainforest, and by nightfall a crater-lake swim in the cool of the Tablelands. That’s the range this drive covers.
Why drive the Great Tropical Drive?
Variety is the whole pitch. Few weeks anywhere in Australia move you from reef to rainforest to highland dairy country with so little effort behind the wheel. You’ll swim among parrotfish and turtles, learn to read the forest on a Dreamtime Walk with a Kuku Yalanji guide whose people have lived here for tens of thousands of years, and finish among the coffee plantations and waterfalls of the Atherton Tablelands.
Because it’s a loop, the logistics stay simple: one pickup and one drop-off in Cairns, no one-way relocation fees. Just remember this is the tropics - respect the crocodile and marine-stinger warnings, save your swims for the reef and the freshwater crater lakes, and let the wet-season roads dictate how far north you go.
Hire your campervan from Cairns
From A$1,200 per person for 7 days. Compare the main operators:
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Day by day
900 km total · about 10.5 hours behind the wheel across 7 days.
- 1
Cairns to Port Douglas
67 km · 1hPoint the van north out of Cairns and onto the Great Barrier Reef Drive, one of the most scenic coastal roads in the country, where rainforest-clad ranges tumble almost to the sand. Break for coffee under the paperbarks at Palm Cove before rolling into Port Douglas. In the afternoon, walk the boardwalks of Mossman Gorge and take a Dreamtime Walk with a Kuku Yalanji guide, who reads the rainforest as a living pantry and pharmacy.
Highlights Great Barrier Reef Drive · Palm Cove · Mossman Gorge
Stay BIG4 Port Douglas Glengarry Holiday Park · from A$45/nightcheck availability
- 2
Out to the Great Barrier Reef
0 kmTrade the wheel for a boat and spend the whole day on the reef. Port Douglas is one of the finest launch points on the coast, with skippers running everything from big stable catamarans to intimate sailing boats out to the outer reef and the Low Isles. Slip into the warm water and drift over coral gardens alive with parrotfish, giant clams and the occasional cruising turtle.
Highlights Outer Great Barrier Reef · Low Isles · Snorkelling & diving
Stay BIG4 Port Douglas Glengarry Holiday Park · from A$45/nightcheck availability
- 3
Port Douglas to Cape Tribulation
85 km · 2hCross the Daintree River on the little cable ferry and enter the oldest rainforest on earth, a green so dense the light turns underwater. Take a river cruise to watch estuarine crocodiles slide off the mud banks, then push north to Cape Tribulation, the rare place where two World Heritage areas meet and the reef washes up against the forest. Walk the boardwalks and let the beach empty out at dusk.
Highlights Daintree River cruise · Daintree Rainforest · Cape Tribulation
Stay Cape Tribulation Camping · from A$20/nightcheck availability
- 4
The Bloomfield Track to Cooktown
105 km · 3hThis is the day the trip earns its stripes - or gently doesn't. In a 4WD, the legendary Bloomfield Track climbs and dips north through the rainforest with several creek crossings before delivering you to the frontier history of Cooktown, where Captain Cook once beached the Endeavour. In a 2WD, backtrack at your leisure to Port Douglas instead; there is no shame in a second sunset on the coast.
Highlights Bloomfield Track · Historic Cooktown · Grassy Hill Lookout
- 5
The coast up to the Atherton Tablelands
120 km · 2hClimb off the humid coast into the cool, green highlands of the Atherton Tablelands, where the air sheds ten degrees on the way up. Stop at the quirky mountain village of Kuranda and ride the Skyrail cableway or the historic Scenic Railway above the thundering Barron Falls. Chase the waterfall circuit to Millaa Millaa Falls, then pull in at a coffee plantation or dairy farm for the region's ludicrously good local produce.
Highlights Kuranda · Skyrail & Barron Falls · Millaa Millaa Falls
Stay Lake Eacham Tourist Park · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 6
Exploring the Atherton Tablelands
45 km · 1hGive the crater lakes a full day. Lake Eacham is a volcanic maar filled with water so clear you can watch turtles paddle beneath you - a rare, croc-free freshwater swim. Cruise rainforest-ringed Lake Barrine, then stand under the vast Curtain Fig Tree, a strangler fig whose aerial roots hang in a fifteen-metre wall like a frozen waterfall of timber.
Highlights Lake Eacham · Lake Barrine · Curtain Fig Tree
Stay Lake Eacham Tourist Park · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 7
Atherton Tablelands back to Cairns
80 km · 1.5hWind back down the range to Cairns on a road that unspools through cane fields and rainforest, the sea glinting into view as you drop to the coast. Close the loop with an afternoon on the Esplanade - a swim in the saltwater Lagoon, a wander through the Night Markets - before handing back the keys.
Highlights Gillies Range drive · Cairns Esplanade Lagoon · Cairns Night Markets