The Outback Queensland's Dinosaur Trail is a 7-day, 800 km loop from Longreach by campervan. Any 2WD campervan is fine - it's rated easy. Best in Autumn (Mar-May) or Winter (Jun-Aug). Budget from about A$1,200 per person, plus roughly A$224 in fuel.
Ninety-five million years ago, this country was a mosaic of forests, rivers and a vast inland sea, and giants walked here. Drive the Dinosaur Trail through Outback Queensland and you follow their footsteps quite literally - across the flat gold Mitchell grass plains to Winton, Hughenden and Richmond, the three fossil towns that form Australia’s Dinosaur Triangle. In a single unhurried week from Longreach you can stand over the world’s only recorded dinosaur stampede, meet the country’s largest sauropod, and camp on the rim of a canyon carved through the outback, all from the comfort of a campervan.
Seven days is the sweet spot. Long enough to linger in every museum, dig for your own marine fossil and watch a proper outback sunset; short enough to close the loop back to Longreach without a single day that feels like pure transit. The main roads are sealed, the towns sit a comfortable drive apart, and the caravan parks are friendly and well run.
Fossilised footprints frozen mid-stampede, a ten-metre sea predator, a striped canyon at dawn - and a country pub at the end of every driving day. That’s the Dinosaur Trail.
Why drive the Dinosaur Trail?
Few road trips connect you to deep time like this one. You’ll see the bones of Australia’s biggest dinosaur, walk the only known evidence of a stampede anywhere on earth, and fossick the floor of an ancient sea - an experience that lands just as hard for curious kids as for grown-ups.
Beyond the fossils, this is the quintessential outback: enormous skies, sun-bleached pubs, and stars so thick at Porcupine Gorge they feel close enough to touch. For campervan travellers it’s one of the most accessible outback adventures going - good sealed roads, real distances between fuel stops, and a genuine sense of the frontier without ever needing to leave the bitumen.
Hire your campervan from Longreach
From A$1,200 per person for 7 days. Compare the main operators:
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Day by day
800 km total · about 15 hours behind the wheel across 7 days.
- 1
Longreach to Winton
180 km · 2hRoll out of Longreach and head west across open Mitchell grass plains that run flat and gold all the way to the horizon. Winton is the beating heart of the Dinosaur Trail, and the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum waits on a jump-up mesa above the plain - join a tour to see the country's largest collection of Australian fossils and watch palaeontologists chip rock in the prep lab.
Highlights Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum · Mitchell grass plains
Stay Tatts Hotel & Caravan Park · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 2
Winton & Lark Quarry
220 km · 3hDrive south on the dusty red road to Lark Quarry, where more than 3,300 fossilised footprints record the only known dinosaur stampede on earth, frozen mid-panic 95 million years ago. Back in town, the Waltzing Matilda Centre tells the story of Banjo Paterson's anthem, penned near here in 1895 - a fittingly outback pairing of ancient tracks and bush ballad.
Highlights Lark Quarry Dinosaur Stampede · Waltzing Matilda Centre
Stay Tatts Hotel & Caravan Park · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 3
Winton to Hughenden
215 km · 2.5hPoint the van north to Hughenden, the second corner of the Dinosaur Triangle. At the Flinders Discovery Centre you'll come face to face with Hughie, a seven-metre skeletal replica of a Muttaburrasaurus dug from this very country. The road unspools through quiet cattle stations and the odd sun-bleached pub.
Highlights Flinders Discovery Centre · Muttaburrasaurus replica
Stay Hughenden Allen Terry Caravan Park · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 4
Hughenden to Richmond
115 km · 1.5hA short, easy hop delivers you to Richmond, once the floor of a great inland sea and now Australia's richest marine-fossil town. Kronosaurus Korner is the drawcard, built around the ten-metre skeleton of a giant sea predator that once hunted these waters. Try your luck afterward at the free public fossicking sites and dig your own piece of the Cretaceous.
Highlights Kronosaurus Korner · Marine fossil fossicking
Stay Lakeview Caravan Park · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 5
Richmond to Porcupine Gorge
140 km · 2hSwing back south and north to Porcupine Gorge, the outback's own Little Grand Canyon slicing a vivid gash through the flat scrub. Take in the rim from the lookout, then tackle the steep track down to the Pyramid - a striped sandstone monolith standing over cool green rock pools. Camp on the rim under a blaze of stars with no town lights for a hundred kilometres.
Highlights Porcupine Gorge National Park · The Pyramid lookout
Stay Porcupine Gorge National Park Campground · from A$7/night
- 6
Porcupine Gorge to Longreach
330 km · 4hThe longest leg of the loop rolls back south to Longreach, the grand old hub of the outback. Wander the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame's tribute to the drovers and pioneers, then step aboard a Boeing 747 at the Qantas Founders Museum - the airline was born in Winton and grew up here on the plains.
Highlights Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame · Qantas Founders Museum
Stay Longreach Tourist Park · from A$45/nightcheck availability
- 7
Longreach & depart
Spend a last unhurried morning in Longreach before the van goes back. Rattle along on a heritage Cobb & Co stagecoach, or drift down the Thomson River on a paddlewheeler at sunset as the light turns the water molten gold - a fine, slow full stop to a week among giants.
Highlights Cobb & Co stagecoach ride · Thomson River sunset cruise