Airlie Beach to Brisbane Part I

The laughing call of kookaburras rang out from the tall gum trees of our hostel's gardens, the white trunks turning clementine in the setting sun. Below we sat on colourful plastic sun loungers, mentally preparing ourselves for another epic bus journey of 20 hours to take us back to Brisbane.

Nightfall had completely descended by the time we boarded the bus, eager to be on our way. However the bus was soon diverted off its route along the highway due to a traffic accident. This led the bus to thunder down an unlit and poorly maintained side road, which undulated off into the night. With a long distance and schedule to keep the bus thundered through this rollercoaster, its front bumper clattering the tarmac as the road steeply dipped up and down. The driver broke hard to avoid both this and several near-misses with cattle and wallabies, obliviously wandering by the road in the darkness. By sheer luck no animal or bus was harmed but our attempts to sleep were futile. The erratic momentum of the bus bounced us in our seats and threw us forward against our seatbelts. It wasn't until the early hours of the morning, when we had returned to the smoother highway, that we managed to pass out.

Sunlight and noise brought us out of our cocoons as we arrived in Hervey Bay, where most of our fellow passengers from Airlie Beach departed. We were now over half-way through out marathon journey...Read more