I am looking at travelling with a Jayco 21' van in tow behind a Nissan Navara from Cairns to Charters Towers via Atherton, stopping off at Lava Tubes and then on to Greenvale to Charters Towers.
Was wondering what the road conditions are like, narrow? winding road? road trains or B doubles?
Could I make Lava Tubes to Charters Towers in the 1 day without to much stress? if not any good spots to free camp along the route
Safe driving
Graham
-- Edited by Wheels on Monday 3rd of July 2017 11:18:16 AM
We have done this trip with a Kia Rio and top pod
with no Problems also with Mitsi ute and Avan cruiseliner
some times the road gets rough but take is easy and you will
have no issues. Just to qualify our last time was August 2016
realy if you drive to conditions you will have no troubles
enjoy the trip
Hi Graham,
We drove that road two years ago southbound from Cairns to CT. to visit the lava tubes we stayed at Mt Surprise. They have a bus and a guide to take to the area. Well worth a visit and the CP at Mt Surprise is well run. We did travel Mt S to CP in one day no problem. The road then was ok, mainly one lane of bitumen and sometimes good gravel. There are road trains on that road mainly carrying ore or cattle. As the Mt Surprise guide said 200 head of cattle at 500 kg each plus the weight of the truck equates to 100 plus tonnes coming down the road at 90 km/hr deserves no demands respect. Ther is a system of numbered signs and if you have a CB you call up on Ch 40 to identify your position by post number and direction of travel. If ther is a roadtrain near they will call you . We found the best solution was to move to the left and stop until the truck passes. Our Fiat based Autotrail motorhome had no problem with this road. You should however check the current road conditions prior to commencing the journey. Hope this helps, Gary.
thanks for the reply, when I have driven this stretch of road I will post it to let others know what the experience was like, Gary it will be interesting if there are any changes in the 2 years
Take care
Graham
We did the reverse trip 2 years ago and I know that road conditions change but both our Pajero and 21 foot jayco made it through & we found the truckies good, as for driving from Lava tubes to Charters towers in one day sure it can be done but you will miss seeing some interesting country
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