Long journeys

Highlight of my day was realising the bus driver had made up our time. So our bus left 45minutes late from Melbourne, but arrived 15 minutes early in Adelaide. That man is a legend. Only 10.5hrs instead of 11.5.

The roads were the least of the problem, much more rain and the routes are going to be impassable. Large fields were flooded along the route. Ditches along the road were streams. The rivers in Melbourne have burst their banks. There were times when I could only see it was a field and not a pond, from the long grass that stuck out from the middle. Trees were encircled with water. It clearly does not rain a lot here, because nothing is prepared for it.

At one of the stops, I was sitting beside a claw machine full of sweets. A maintenance guy came up to do something with it, and handed me a couple chocolates! He was so sweet, said I needed some chocolate to go with my coke. I got proper grandfatherly vibes from him, it was so nice of him.

Then at last stop, we were 8hrs in at this point. Very little sleep and high on sugar, I found some pork scratching things. They hit the spot. Little bit of salt (well a lot, but shhhh) to counteract my sugar intake. They weren't great, but just what I need.

Ended up doing the entire trip on 4hrs sleep and no coffee. I was impressed with myself. I guessed that the coffee would keep me up and make me need the bathroom more, so I abstained. In hindsight, I'm glad I did. The onboard toilet was a last resort option and the public ones at the stops weren't much better.

Half the price of flying, 10x the time but 100x easier. All I did was show up say my surname and stick my bag in the bottom. No bag checks, no passport control, he didn't even want to see proof of purchase. It was a long time, but so much nicer than flying. 100% will do again over flying if possible.Read more