You will love this trip.

For many years we had a restaurant up in the tropics, and during the wet season we would close and head down south. The first think we learnt was it's a long way to Brisbane, so we started to bite chunks out of it in coming years and then it was real fun. All up IIRC we used to leave Cairns at midnight after service, and we would be in Brisbane by 6pm, this was with sensible stops and change of drivers along the way. The highway for the most part is inland, in very good condition and you have to make the effort to go towards the sea, but we found every town worthy of a stop so in the end, it's going to be hard to choose.

Obvious grouped area stops, :

Cairns
Port Douglas
Cooktown

Cardwell
Hinchinbrook
Dunk
Mission

Townsville
Magnetic
Charters towers

Bowen
Mackay
Prosperpine
Whitsundays

Brisbane
Noosa
Hervey bay
Fraser

You will have to be choosy, because you will want to stay at places for days,
it's no fun driving all day camping at night and leaving the next day, far better to base yourself in an area for 3/4 nights, allow 5 days for driving, and still time for a breather at either end. Check out the maps, come back if we can help further, it is going to be awesome and in the ideal weather, our winter, but in the north the days will be warm, no rain with crisp nights, often frosts very early morning, so organise your habits and make sure your stops have hot water, regards bkkrop