Our big loop - Outback Queensland road trip summary

Here’s a summary of our Outback Queensland road trip itinerary. The number for each day in the first column of the table below contains a hyperlink that will take you to the detailed post about that day of our trip. In each daily post I have included photos, links and detailed reviews.

ITINERARY

Day	Start	End	Accommodation	Activities	Dining	Driving
​1	Brisbane	Roma	Roma Central Motel, Roma	The Big Melon, Chinchilla	Urban Paddock Cafe, Dalby White Bull Tavern, Roma	5 hours 440 km
2	Roma	Charleville	Rocks Motel, Charleville	The Big Rig, Roma Roma's Largest Bottle Tree Roma Railway Station Roma Main Street Roma Bush Gardens Cosmos Centre, Charleville	Bakearoma Bakery, Roma Mitchell Cafe, Mitchell The Lucky Elephant Restaurant, Charleville	3 hours 267 km
3	Charleville	Longreach	Saltbush Retreat, Longreach	Tree of Knowledge, Barcaldine QANTAS Founders' Museum, Longreach Luminescent Longreach Show	Little Star Indian, Longreach	5 hours 30 mins 515 km
4	Longreach	Longreach	Saltbush Retreat, Longreach	Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame	The Birdcage Hotel, Longreach
5	Longreach	Longreach	Saltbush Retreat, Longreach	Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum Lark Quarry Stampede National Monument		6 hours 50 mins 606 km
6	Longreach	Emerald	​Abode37 Motel, Emerald	Miner's Heritage Museum, Rubyvale Emerald Botanic Gardens	Merino Bakery, Longreach The Strudel Hut, Maryvale The Maraboon Tavern, Emerald	4 hours 30 mins 417 km
7	Emerald	Yeppoon	Oshen Apartments, Yeppoon	World's biggest van Gogh's Sunflowers painting Emerald Train Station Capricorn Caves Yeppoon Waterfront	Cold Rock Icecreamery	4 hours 10 mins 344 km
8	Yeppoon	Yeppoon	Oshen Apartments, Yeppoon	Keppel Explorer Tour	The Waterline, Rosslyn Bay Marina	26 mins 18 km
9	Yeppoon	Hervey Bay	Sunseeker Motel, Hervey Bay	Yeppoon Lagoon Gladstone Harbour Agnes Water 1770 Paperbark Trail		9 hours 30 mins 420 km +
10	Hervey Bay	Hervey Bay	​Sunseeker Motel, Hervey Bay	Spirit of Hervey Bay Whale Watching Tour Urangan Pier	Enzo's on the Beach Planet72 Icecreamery
11	Hervey Bay	Hervey Bay	Sunseeker Motel, Hervey Bay	Fraser Explorer Day Tour - Fraser Island	Eurong Beach Resort, Fraser Island Beach House Hotel, Hervey Bay
12	Hervey Bay	Brisbane	Home!	Wetside Water Park, Hervey Bay	Planet72 Icecreamery	4 hours 307 km

Would we recommend this trip? Absolutely. It’s an ideal trip for primary-school-aged children. There’s an excellent mix of learning (Cosmos Centre, Stockman’s Hall of Fame, QANTAS Founders' Museum, Dinosaur Museum, Underground Mine) and adventure (Keppel Islands, Fraser Island, Whale Watching). We made this trip in late September and the weather at that time of year was ideal.

Top 10 Activities

We had a jam-packed trip and while we enjoyed it all, we wouldn’t say everything would be a ‘must do’ in order to have a great holiday. Here is our family’s list of the top ten activities we enjoyed on this trip, in order of preference (with number one being our favourite): 1. Keppel Explorer Tour (or at least a trip out to the Keppels in some form);

2. Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum with Lark Quarry pass;

3. Fraser Island Tour;

4. QANTAS Founders’ Museum and Luminescent Longreach show;

5. Cosmos Centre, Charleville;

6. Capricorn Caves, Rockhampton;

7. Miner’s Heritage Museum and Underground Mine Tour, Rubyvale;

8. Whale Watching from Hervey Bay;

9. Stockman’s Hall of Fame, Longreach;

10. Wetside Water Park, Hervey Bay.

What would we change?

Itinerary: We would recommend adding two extra days to the itinerary outlined above. To make the most of your time in the Winton area, we’d recommend staying in or near the town. This would allow more time to explore other dinosaur-related attractions in the area, the Waltzing Matilda Centre (which we didn’t get to visit) and some natural gorges within driving distance of the town. It would also avoid a nighttime drive back to Longreach.

We’d also recommend breaking up the drive from Yeppoon to Hervey Bay with an overnight stop in the 1770/Agnes Water area. This would allow time to visit the free Rockhampton Zoo in the morning of this day (they had baby monkeys when we were in the area, but we didn’t have time to visit!) and this would also allow time to properly enjoy an afternoon, night and morning exploring the history and natural beauty of 1770/Agnes Water.

Therefore, we’d recommend a 14-day (full two week) itinerary as follows:

1. Brisbane – Roma

2. Roma – Charleville

3. Charleville – Longreach

4. Longreach

5. Longreach – Winton

6. Winton

7. Winton – Emerald

8. Emerald – Yeppoon

9. Yeppoon

10. Yeppoon – 1770/Agnes Water

11. 1770/Agnes Water – Hervey Bay

12. Hervey Bay

13. Hervey Bay

14. Hervey Bay – Brisbane

Accommodation

We found most of our accommodation to be suitable and we’d recommend our motel choices to families of six, as long as you are prepared to sleep two to every double/queen bed and don’t mind sleeping on a sofa bed.

We would not recommend the Stables Rooms at Saltbush Retreat in Longreach. We split our family into two smaller groups to fit into these rooms (therefore paying double) because we were enticed by the idea of a little bit of ‘Outback luxury’ and we loved the photos of the outdoor bath terrace. We didn’t even use the bath terrace and we ran into issues with our rooms – it certainly wasn’t the luxury experience we had expected. Saltbush is conveniently located across the highway from the QANTAS Founders’ Museum, so we’d recommend booking a cheaper, more basic, family cabin at Saltbush instead. These can accommodate a full family of six in the one cabin, which is both cheaper and more convenient.

We would highly recommend Oshen Apartments in Yeppoon and Sunseeker Motel in Hervey Bay. Our two- or three-bedroom apartments at both of these places made our time in the room relaxing and allowed us to spread out. Both are also located within walking distance of nice eateries, which is an extra benefit.

Food

The Strudel Hut in Rubyvale is worth a visit because of its quirkiness. Planet72 Icecreamery is also worth a visit for the novelty of choosing from 72 ice-cream flavours.

We liked all the hotels and restaurants we visited for meals, and we’d happily recommend them. Having said that, if your family prefers to eat in your room, the spirit of the trip won’t be affected. Just be aware that you won’t find any familiar fast-food restaurants once you head west of Roma, although they are plentiful again from Emerald heading east and then all down the coast. Many small towns offer very limited dining options, so you’ll need to be booked in advance if you’d like to dine in at any of the popular restaurants in these smaller towns (especially in peak travel times). For days on the road, we’d recommend stocking up at a bakery or grocery store in advance, because many small towns we passed through didn’t even have a bakery, and you can’t rely on food being available when you grow hungry. Some small stores didn’t accept card payment, so we’d recommend having a small amount of cash on hand as well.

Final tips:

- Fuel up when you can, because the drives involved in this trip are long and the towns are few and far between in the true Outback.

- Use bathrooms when you pass them, because the drives involved in this trip are long (did we already say that, haha?).

- If you’re relying on screens to entertain the kids, make sure you have things downloaded before you go, because the internet is patchy.

- Have your route planned out and entered in your navigation system when you have good connectivity, because it’s likely you won’t have phone reception at times.

- Avoid driving long distances at night because of wildlife.

- Be sure to factor in rest time. This is especially true for the driver.

Queensland is a vast and beautiful state. This road trip makes the most of both the sweeping outback plains and the spectacular beauty of the southern Great Barrier Reef. It incorporates a visit to the world’s only dinosaur stampede footprints in their original location and a visit to the world’s largest sand island. Away from the city lights, you can enjoy views of the Milky Way that you’d never see at home. Stepping inside caves formed by thousands of years of erosion and watching whales make the migration they’ve made for thousands of years is awe-inspiring. To top it off, there are lessons to be learned along the way from stories of early air travel, mining and farming, which remind us of the strength and ingenuity of Queenslanders who have gone before us. This trip will stay with us forever and we would highly recommend it to families visiting Queensland.