Mt MulliganLodge

On a 28,000-hectare property 160 kilometres north-west of Cairns, a modern outback lodge sits beneath the sandstone escarpment of Mount Mulligan, a mountain sacred to the Djungan people and the site of Queensland's worst mining disaster, a 1921 explosion that killed 75 men in the coal town below. The abandoned township's ruins are still there to walk through. Opened in 2019 by the family-owned Morris Escapes — which also runs Orpheus Island and Beechmont Estate — the lodge takes just 28 guests across five room types, from Outback Suites to canvas-walled tents, arranged around a central pavilion, infinity pool and sunset bar. Everything is included: meals built around Far North Queensland produce, drinks, guided four-wheel-drive and helicopter excursions across the property's gorges and waterholes, and a mineral bathing spa that opened in early 2026. It trades the reef-and-rainforest cliche of tropical Queensland tourism for something starker and quieter — red escarpment, old mining relics, a night sky with none of the coast's light pollution.