Hi Kathy,

May is a good time to be up around Cairns as it will be hot but not too humid and is out of NSW/QLD school holidays. When you are up that far north it is warm all year around. In Sydney it would be cooler as it is autumm at that time of year.

What is rock hounding? I haven't heard of that before.

It is a LONG drive from Sydney to Cairns - over 2,000 kilometres.

I don't know much about renting campervans - perhaps if you look at the Avis/Britz/Hertz/Budget etc sites.

We have stayed in caravan parks over here - mainly in cabin accommodation - I always like to have accommodation booked but at that time of the year you should be okay. There are also lots of motels and holiday houses. With the exchange rate it will be quite good value for you. There is a chain of caravan parks "Big4" <a href="http://www.big4.com.au" target="_blank">http://www.big4.com.au</A> and another site <a href="http://www.familyparks.com.au/" target="_blank">http://www.familyparks.com.au/</A> that might be helpful but I can't really recommend any one way or another. You would have to price it all as it might be cheaper to hire a car and stay in cabin accommodation or similar.

Hope this helps, Vicki