How to avoid the notorious Bruce Hwy

There’s one thing just about every traveller agrees on when heading north in tropical Queensland: ‘Avoid the Bruce, if you can!’

The main coastal highway with the rotten rap might be the obvious and shorter choice north of Brisbane, but it's almost certainly the worst. Just two lane (one up; one down) in many places and plagued by never-ending roadworks and time-poor truckies, it has encouraged many holiday travellers to seek alternatives.

These include the Gold Coast’s Roger and Liz Halliwell, who decided to find a more interesting and relaxing alternative back from the Atherton Tableland after their recent trip to the Wet Tropics in their Kimberley E-Class Kruiser hauled by their V8 Nissan Patrol.

Bruce Highway traffic jam

“We just got sick of all the delays on the trip up the coast,” said Roger, “and the scenery and places we stopped at wasn’t all that great to compensate”.

So, starting in Atherton on their return journey, they eschewed the road down the Tableland to Cairns that they had taken on the trip north and followed the more scenic Kennedy Highway along the spine of the Great Dividing Range that passes through Mareeba, Ravenshoe, before taking the left-hand turn onto the Gregory Development Road to Charters Towers.

If you allow a little more time, there are some notable historic caves just off this route that you should visit.

The first are at the Chillagoe-Mungana Caves National Park, which is reached via a bitumen road that bears west at Mareeba. There you will find spectacular limestone caves, with small galleries of Aboriginal rock art that can only be viewed via a pre-booked ranger-guided tour every day except Christmas Day.

Further along the main Atherton range-following route you can turn right onto the Savannah Way, where after 17km you will reach the spectacular Undara Volcanic National Park.

Apart from having fuel, a welcoming, but basic campground and a railway car restaurant, you can tour the area’s unique and ancient lava tube formed 190,000 years ago in the area’s rich volcanic basalt so. Next time, Roger and Liz!

Otherwise, keep heading south as they did to The Oasis Roadhouse, just pass the turn-off to Charters Towers, where you really should top up with fuel.

Caravan Parks are also few and far between along this inland route, but this didn’t worry the Halliwells, who have set up their Kruiser E-Class for very comfortable free camping.

Another Kimberley groupie!

After previously being happy owners of a Kimberley Karavan, they were attracted to continue their travels with the Ballina-built brand, but first shopped the E-Class against equivalent off-road models from Track Trailer in Victoria and Australian Off Road in Caloundra before settling on the Kruiser.

“We basically liked the way Kimberley did things,” Roger said, referring to things like the Kruiser’s electric island queen bed that retracts to become a couch by day, and also its waterless toilet in a separate compartment so you don’t have to share it with the shower.

With free-camping in mind, they ordered their E-Class with two 300AH lithium batteries for a total of 600AH, fed by 550 Watts of lightweight 2mm-thick Merlin Space solar panels on the roof, plus a 2600 Watt inverter that gives them enough power to run their air conditioner along with the induction cooktop in their inside kitchen.

Then they added a few accessories to customise their particular needs which included some modifications Roger made to the Kruiser’s Cel-fi System to get reliable 4G connection in the bush, custom handrails for all the towels you use up north, A-frame mounted bike racks for the two bicycles they carry for their sightseeing days and a large front-mounted tool box with bash plates for packing extra gear needed on longer off-grid trips (they were the first Kruiser owners to fit four tool boxes to the model’s chassis!).

“It’s very comfortable to live in,” agreed Liz. “We’ve got everything we need to live very well and it’s small and light enough to go wherever we want to.”

V8 towing grunt

As you’d expect, the Halliwells gave as much thought to their choice of tow car, which is a 2021 Series 5 Nissan Patrol with its wheels and tyres matched to those of the Kruiser.

“We wanted the convenience and weight-saving of having the same wheels all round, so we sent a Patrol wheel to Kimberley in Ballina before our Kruiser was even built and they managed the correct off-sets and stud pattern,” Roger said.

The Patrol with it 5.6 litre V8 petrol power is a fabulous towing vehicle and it pulls the 2600kg fully laden Kruiser with ease.

"Although it’s got a good-sized 140 litre fuel tank, we usually carry two full 20-litre jerry cans to be safe on the comparatively long distances between petrol stations when you avoid the coast,” he said. “But we rarely let the tank drop below half full."

Travelling the roads less sealed

On their travels, which have included Tanami and Oodnadatta Tracks, the Halliwells have a guiding principle.

“if we have the choice of sealed or unsealed roads to get to the same place, we take the unsealed ones. The air suspension treats the Kruiser very kindly and the standard disc brakes are always reliable and never give any trouble after water crossings."

Continuing their trip south from Charters Towers to the Gold Coast, the Halliwells were still committed to by-passing the Bruce Highway, so they continued after crossing the Flinders Highway to Clermont, Emerald and on to Roma.

But then, instead of turning left onto the busy Warrego Highway, they continued south to St.George and then on to Beaudesert, returning to the Mudgeeraba home from the West.

 “It was longer that travelling by the Bruce, but so much more interesting,” said Liz.

"We got to see wonderful landscapes and we sometimes stopped at the side of the road to chat over lunch to a farmer on his tractor.

“It made us really feel connected to the country.”