I did an epic outback road trip without a four-wheel drive (or a tent)

Three. Two. One. Flash. A quick shot of torchlight sends thousands of microbats – barely 15 centimetres wide with wings outstretched – into a frenzied flap, swarming and darting above us like kamikaze hummingbirds. Dazzled, they briefly retreat to the depths of their bat cave, before exiting minutes later with the same erratic energy to pursue their nightly feed, silhouetted against a deep purple sky.

About 50,000 of these tiny bats will later return to Barker’s Cave in the Undara Volcanic National Park, four hours’ drive or so south-west of Cairns, with the cave the last stop on a wildlife at sunset tour.

The Undara lava tubes.

Our tour starts in a van that slowly bumps along a dirt road that Australia’s first settlers once traversed in pursuit of a goldfield lottery. To our left, an eastern grey kangaroo stands bolt upright to survey our movements, then twitches a furry ear and bends over to resume nibbling soft green shoots of vegetation, spurred by a controlled burn. Behind it, three emus take big deliberate steps through waist-height grass among acacia trees, almost blending in with the brown and straw-coloured landscape.

This is Tropical North Queensland’s Gulf Savannah country, and, along with a healthy array of wildlife, the region has some of Australia’s most striking geological landscapes. If you’ve never visited Australia’s great outback before (perhaps the idea of tramping across a dusty campground to a communal shower with your towel and undies under your arm gives you the heebie-jeebies), this is the place to do it. You can drive well-maintained, 2WD-friendly roads and enjoy a comfortable bed and shower each night, but still experience some of the most awe-inspiring sights the outback has to offer. By tackling just the first section of the iconic Savannah Way, starting in Cairns, you can dip your toe into the outback then be sleeping in your own bed within a week.

Undara, meaning “long way” in the local Ewamian language, will be your first stop. This complex system of snaking lava tubes – 63 in total, 11 of those accessible – is one of the world’s longest flows of lava propelled by a single eruption; in this case, Undara Volcano, which didn’t violently explode, but rather boiled over for months like a pot of milk forgotten on the stove 190,000 years ago, melting a network of hollows as it spilled across the countryside.

Kalkani Crater at sunset in Undara Volcanic National Park.

The two-hour “Archway Explorer″⁣ is the lava tubes’ 101 tour and takes us down a set of steps into the mouth of a yawning cave. Inside, the temperature noticeably dips and it smells like a musty wine cellar. Pockmarked walls, splashed with white calcium carbonate and brown iron oxide, wrap around us as we press into the darkness, following our guide’s powerful torch.

About 300 metres into the second cave we enter, we stop to look at a piece of rock on the ground the shape of a six-seater dining table with a corner cut off, then look up to see a void of the same angular shape on the cave’s ceiling. “This is why we don’t give you hard hats – there’s really no point,” chuckles our guide, Ken, who reassures us that the giant thump probably happened about 10,000 years ago.

Around the same time, another phenomenon was taking place 230 kilometres away. The Earth had trembled, causing thick layers of sandstone to fracture like an eggshell, and it created Queensland’s youngest gorge, which would later take the surname of pioneering pastoralist Frank Cobbold.

Wall-to-wall beauty – paddle-boarding through Cobbold Gorge.

Much later, in fact.

Under white settlement, the land surrounding the narrow gorge became cattle country and livestock (and therefore farmers) avoided the property’s great swathes of scorching sandstone, given it hardly makes for a tasty pasture.

That’s how, remarkably, the 800-metre-long Cobbold Gorge wasn’t “discovered” until 1992 (though it was no secret to the Ewamian people). It was only when the station owner’s son, Simon Terry (who now runs the property with his own adult children), and his mate, Scotty, searched for a fishing spot using Scotty’s tinnie that the young men ventured up Cobbold Creek to find themselves wedged between contoured cliffs as high as an upended cricket pitch and streaked with shades of terracotta, caramel and coffee.

Simon later called his folks down and paddled them through the deep green waters of the gorge in an old water trough (Scotty and his boat had gone home by then). Realising they had a geological pot of gold on their doorstep, the Terrys invested in their own tinnie and started running tours of the gorge in 1994.

Thirty years on, Cobbold Gorge is a sleek operation. Still run by the Terry family, guided tours provide visitors a three-hour overview of the gorge and include a cruise on an electric boat (custom-made to a width of 1.4 metres to squeeze through the narrowest sections of the gorge) and a walk along the gorge’s rocky plateau and a 17-metre-high glass bridge.

The glass bridge at Cobbold Gorge.

On our boat tour, we glide through the inky water, following the gentle curves of the cliffs that constantly weep into the gorge, ensuring it never runs dry. Schools of spotted archerfish wiggle past, and pretty, doily-shaped spider webs string between jagged rocks, catching unsuspecting insects who think they’ve been invited to tea. Some sections of the gorge are wide enough to let the sun dance on the water, while other sections are so narrow it’s like the walls are closing in on us.

Flipping to a top view on foot, from the bridge, we spot a freshwater crocodile lying dead-still in the middle of the gorge – head afloat, tail sinking slightly – like a holidaymaker on a floaty.

“Anyone joining the paddle-boarding tour at 4.30?” asks our guide, Grant. My partner and I raise our hands. “Don’t worry, the crocs take a nap then,” he says with a wink.

When 4.30 rolls around, we don a lifejacket and helmet, and push our SUPs into the still water. Mere metres away, another freshwater crocodile lies motionless on a narrow stretch of pebbly bank, slender jaws agape, and a slitted pupil tracks us as we drift past. It’s not sleeping, but it may as well be, and we’re assured that if we stay out of the crocs’ business, they’ll stay out of ours.

Down at the water’s edge at Copperfield Gorge.

Our group of eight slowly splits as we paddle in our own time. Alone, I hover midway down the gorge, resting my paddle on my board to observe the meditative silence; the chirrup of a cricket the only sound piercing the warm air.

There’s something restorative about the landscape, and it compounds our earlier experience at the Talaroo Hot Springs, an Indigenous Protected Area, en route to Cobbold Gorge. As we follow our Ewamian leader, Thomas, along a boardwalk, the sound of trickling water emerges, and we peer over the railing into a deep, water-filled vent – measuring 100 degrees Celsius at the bottom – which releases a steady stream of bubbles. Next to it, steaming water trickles through shallow, stepped pools, tinged gold with sulphur bacteria. “It takes 20,000 years for rainwater to travel underground, heat up and bubble into these springs, so this water hasn’t seen daylight for 20,000 years,” explains Thomas, before adding: “I dunno how the scientists work that out.”

Our one-hour Talaroo tour, which covers local legends and bush tucker, ends at a pebbled pool that sits at a pleasant 38 degrees. We submerge in the healing waters, shaded by tea-trees, then hit the road again, whizzing by the rust-coloured pinnacles of termite nests, which poke out of the spindly grass like meerkats, and slowing down for herds of cows that plod along the roadside and turn a lazy head as we pass by.

We later stop at Copperfield Gorge, too, a one-hour detour off the main road. Lesser-known than Cobbold, Copperfield feels quiet and untouched, with smooth, deep-grey stones stacked in geometric patterns alongside a body of water that snakes through sandy banks (note, the road in can easily flood, so check conditions first if you’re travelling in a 2WD).

Kalkani Crater at Undara Volcanic National Park.

The landscape is so incomprehensively vast, the only way to try to grasp its scale is to see it from the air. Therefore, at Cobbold Gorge we buckle into a doorless helicopter to transition from cow to bird-level.

The second my seatbelt clicks, station-owner Harry Terry pitches us into the flawless blue sky, and, rotors whirring, nose dipped, we veer sharply right and propel across the 133,500-hectare Robin Hood Station (which abuts the Sherwood mining lease, get it?). Harry dips the chopper to cruise low between two mountains, and we follow the wide, sandy bed of the dry Robertson River. Below us, weeping paperbark trees lean so far over they’re almost on their bellies, flattened by the force of the raging river during the wet, but holding on with strong roots buried deep in the terrain.

The elevated view reinforces the scale, power and majesty of the outback, and a trip through it can teach us that, although we’re little more than tiny bats on this Earth – often flapping madly and flying blind – we can find endless solace in the outback if we take the time to experience it.

THE DETAILS

DRIVE

The road between Cairns and Undara is fully sealed, however, Talaroo and Cobbold Gorge are accessed via dirt roads (suitable for conventional vehicles). Check hire-car policies before booking.

See savannahway.com.au/itineraries/cairns-to-lawn-hill

STAY

Don’t want to rough it? You don’t have to. At Discovery Resorts Undara, you can sleep in a refurbished Queensland rail carriage or modern homestead room. There’s also a big, open-air restaurant and pool. See discoveryholidayparks.com.au/resorts/undara

Railway carriage accommodation.

Cobbold Gorge offers accommodation in standalone huts and semi-self-contained rooms, and has a restaurant, an infinity pool and a swim-up bar overlooking a eucalypt-fringed dam. See cobboldgorge.com.au

Talaroo has four eco-glamping tents (two include dual private baths fed from the springs) and a cafe. See talaroo.com.au

The writer was a guest of Tourism Tropical North Queensland, Discovery Parks, Cobbold Gorge and Talaroo Hot Springs.