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QLD Road Trip 2026
  • McDermotts Travel Oz
  • McDermotts Travel Oz

QLD Road Trip 2026

Making memories one road trip at a time Read more
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  • McDermotts Travel OzQLD Road Trip 2026Traveler

    Longreach QLD

    July 21 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Blue skies, warm winter sunshine and an easy travel day – perfect 👌

    After a relatively short (200 km) drive from Winton, we rolled into Longreach Tourist Park by mid morning under yet another picture-perfect Queensland winter sky.

    Along the way, we passed a sign announcing that we'd entered the Lake Eyre Basin. Who even knew it extends this far north and east?!

    After a quick dash into town for essential supplies we headed to the QANTAS Founders Museum for a guided tour. Longreach has such an important place in Australia's aviation history and the museum does a fantastic job of bringing that story to life. Walking through the exhibits and hearing the stories behind the people, aircraft and pioneering spirit that helped create our national airline was both fascinating and inspiring.

    Our guide Ryan’s mix of knowledge, storytelling, humour and quirky aviation trivia made the whole tour thoroughly engaging from start to finish. Easily one of the highlights of the trip and well worth a visit.

    We also discovered a friendly rivalry over the true home of QANTAS: Winton claims the idea, Cloncurry the first registered address and Longreach the place where the airline really took flight, with the original hangar and workshop established here. I give Longreach the win 😊

    We returned to the museum after dark for the Luminescent Longreach Light Show - a spectacular retelling of the history of QANTAS projected onto the side of a retired Boeing 747. Watching Australia’s aviation story unfold across the nose and fuselage of an actual Jumbo Jet was a pretty unique way to end the day. Again, highly recommend.    Read more

  • McDermotts Travel OzQLD Road Trip 2026Traveler
    Love a fuel stop literally on the side of the road
    Love a fuel stop literally on the side of the road

    Charleville QLD

    July 22 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Another day, another few hundred kilometres…

    Today we officially left the tropics, crossing back south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

    Our first stop on route was Barcaldine (pronounced Bar-call-din), home of the famous Tree of Knowledge. It was beneath this tree that a meeting was held in 1891 which ultimately led to the formation of the Australian Labor Party.

    From there, we continued along a surprisingly busy highway, sharing the road with an endless convoy of caravans and road trains - big ones - and at least one with a pretty scary tail end swagger 😬

    Somewhere between Blackall and Tambo we crossed the Wild Dog Barrier Fence - better known as the Dingo Fence - which stretches more than 5,500 kms to the Eyre Peninsula in SA. It was built in the 1880s to protect sheep from dingoes and wild dog and remains one of the longest man-made structures on Earth.

    Further down the road, we stopped in Augathella for a happy snap with the town’s giant meat ant - the six legged variety that is 😆

    By late afternoon, we rolled into Charleville - home of stars, secrets (so they claim) and some of Australia’s darkest night skies. We checked into the Cobb & Co Caravan Park before joining the grey nomads around the communal fire pit for happy hour, where I’m pretty sure Anth and I lowered the average age by at least a decade 😊 We now have a new wealth of travel knowledge and a thousand more places to explore on future road trips.

    P.S. It seems every town out this way is keen to claim a piece of the Qantas story. Even Tambo proudly declares itself the site of the airline’s first crash!    Read more

  • McDermotts Travel OzQLD Road Trip 2026Traveler

    Charlotte Plains QLD

    July 23 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Some days you just have to ‘soak it up’ 😁🥰

    Today’s drive took us from Charleville through Cunnamulla, where of course we stopped for a photo with the iconic Cunnamulla Fella. I’m pleased to report that at least four of us successfully resisted the urge to burst into song 🤦🏽‍♀️ I can also confirm it looks exactly the same as it did on our last visit in 2021!

    Our destination, Charlotte Plains is a working sheep station best known for its artesian hot baths, where naturally heated bore water direct from the Great Artesian Basin bubbles out at a constant 42°.

    After settling into camp and partially cooking ourselves in what is effectively Australia’s biggest sous vide 😆 we treated ourselves to the private baths just before sunset. Sitting in steaming artesian water against the backdrop of an endless outback sky was about as relaxing (and romantic) as it gets... but for three teenage boys 😜

    As darkness fell, everyone gravitated to the communal fire pit for happy hour, complete with live music. The boys kept us in good spirits (literally) by proving their talent on the infamous barrel-riding competition, winning us a few rounds of free drinks by making it across without falling🍷

    After one of the best sleeps I’ve had in ages with every muscle in my body completely relaxed, we woke to a chilly 7° and a spectacular sight: steam rising off the hot bore baths in the crisp morning air.

    Charlotte Plains had been on my list of places to visit for a while and it absolutely didn’t disappoint. In spite of it being off-road and off-grid, I can highly recommend staying a night.

    Hot tip (pardon the pun): Definitely recommend booking the private bath experience - it’s set a about 10km from the main bore site and hence the water comes out at a pleasantly warm 30°-ish. We happily soaked it up for the best part of 2 hours 🥰    Read more

  • McDermotts Travel OzQLD Road Trip 2026Traveler
    1

    Narrabri NSW

    July 24 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    Finally we’ve crossed back into NSW - it’s both happy and sad to be nearing home.

    We’ve now added sheep and goat to the roadkill count (along with kangaroos and cows) - not our personal tally, which thankfully still sits at zero, unless you count the unfortunate cane toad at Winton!

    After leaving Charlotte Plains, we travelled through cotton-growing country before stopping for brunch at St George where we used the opportunity to Google search our next destination: Narrabri it is.

    We rolled into Narrabri around 4 pm and checked into possibly the best caravan park ever. Our spacious drive-through ensuite site comes complete with courtesy soap and shampoo and, best of all, fluffy fresh towels - so luxurious after nearly four weeks of travelling.

    To celebrate our final night on the road, we walked to dinner at the RSL next door to the caravan park where we enjoyed a delicious backside of the road side creatures we’ve been dodging the past few days: Moo 🐄 😆    Read more

  • McDermotts Travel OzQLD Road Trip 2026Traveler

    Home Sweet Home

    July 25 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 5 °C

    We woke to a very chilly 2° in Narrabri this morning, with frost covering everything – a stark reminder that we're well and truly back to winter. 🥶

    From there, we headed home through the picturesque Hunter Valley, passing through the towns of Scone, Muswellbrook and Singleton before joining the M1 for the final stretch back into Sydney.

    As we rolled into suburbia, we certainly looked the part after our adventure, having collected a thick layer of mud and dust over the past few weeks.

    Thankfully, concerns about fuel supply before we started never became an issue on the road. Despite the uncertainty created by Trump's ongoing conflict with Iran and the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz, every fuel stop along the way was well stocked and operating as normal.

    The adventure may be over, but the photos, stories and memories will keep the experience alive for a long time yet.

    They say you start planning your next trip as soon as you return from the one you’re on, and they're not wrong. In fact, we've already started the countdown to our next big adventure.

    Bring on Central Australia 2027!    Read more

  • McDermotts Travel OzQLD Road Trip 2026Traveler

    Number Crunching

    July 26 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    7,568 total kms
    129 driving hours

    Big things:
    *Pineapple, Sunshine Coast
    *Rum bottle, Bundaberg
    *Crab, Miriamvale
    *Whale, Rockhampton
    *Mango, Bowen
    *Meat Ant, Augathella

    New club memberships: Great Keppel Sailing Club, Yeppoon; Tin Shed, Port Douglas

    Best caravan park: Cairns Coconut Resort
    Worst site: Paronella Park

    Best dining experience: Hot and cold seafood platter at the Tin Shed, Port Douglas
    Best value meal: $20 steak and schnitzels at the Seaview Hotel, Townsville

    Best coffee: One 23 Cafe, Narrabri
    Worst coffee: Discovery Resort, Undara

    Highlights:
    Anthony - Great Barrier Reef; Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures; Winton
    Fiona - Port Douglas; Charlotte Plains (hot bore baths)
    Josh - #
    Ryan - Great Barrier Reef; Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures
    Lachlan - Great Barrier Reef    Read more

    Trip end
    July 26, 2026