I'm heading out to Australia for 6 weeks in April to do some traveling and volunteering. Our last spot of volunteering is in cairns but we wanted to experience Brisbane to and so have decided to make that our last stop. Originally we were going to fly but have been thinking of renting a car and taking a week to drive from Cairns to Brisbane to stop off at certain places on the way. I've never been before and was looking for opinions on whether or not this would be a good and more importantly relalistic idea! Any help will be appreciated!!!

It's certainly doable in a week. I could make a good trip out of it & thoroughly enjoy it.

To decide what you would like to do & see, get out the map & google / look here/ on the websites for some of the places you think you might like to explore.

May/June is a lovely time up there ( and in most places in Australia, really).

You could mix it up a little with some inland & some coastal destinations & perhaps one of the islands.

Another tip: have a look at the various destinations' Festivals pages, "What's on in ..." You may be able to take in a country race meeting, a rodeo, yacht race, theatre, art exhibitions, concerts, markets -all sorts of things go on in communities all the time & it's a great way to see how we live.

Have a look at www.southerngreatbarrierreef.com.au/events
www.outbacknow.com.au
www.queensland.com/en-AU/Events

Well it's a long way about 1700 kilometres but the Bruce Highway is a great road from Brisbane to Cairns.
I think that would be a great road trip. I've thought that when we were in Noosa in January just to keep on driving up to Cairns. We got to Airlie Beach which is a laidback place but not somewhere I would return to.
Noosa is really lovely - something about the beach and the river and the awesome view from the Noosa National Park.
It's quite a lot of driving so are you traveling with someone to help with the driving. Over 7 days that's 242 km per day which is not too bad.

oh Thankyou very much for your help! We'll definitely have to get a map out and start planning our routes and adventures on our way. There's two of us who can both drive so we'll be splitting the driving between us. Thank god it will be doable in a week!

Have a great trip
I can recommend Thrifty for a car rental - we live in NZ but go to Queensland every year to visit family and friends. We chose them because they have an in built meter for the toll roads (lots of toll roads in the Brisbane area)and any charges are added to your credit card. On a previous trip we hired a car from East Coast Rentals without a meter and every time you used a toll road you then had to ring up and pay the charge. That's a holiday hassle you can live without.