Travel Blogger Daily Blog: Traveling By Bus Along Australia’s Coast

A Relaxed & Scenic Journey From Surfers Paradise To Byron Bay

By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger

I had a few days to spend in the Gold Coast area of Australia after I wrapped up an event in Surfer’s Paradise and a friend suggested I go to Byron Bay.

Sounded good to me. I wanted some place along the coast, scenic that had some nightlife.

Now, how to get there, I wondered. Renting a car and driving was out of the question. As an American, there was no way that I was going to attempt to drive on the left side of the road.

Heck, walking on the left side of the sidewalk proving challenging enough for me. I kept causing pedestrian traffic jams. “It’s your fault, Yank,” someone told me in a light-hearted manner when a bunch of us piled up on both sides of a walkway.

So I decided to take a bus. It was cheap enough – about $20 as I recall – and short enough of a trip, two, three hours tops.

And I’m glad I did it, too.

Someone else drove, I relaxed and we went slowly through and even briefly stopped at some Australian coastal towns that I otherwise would have never seen.

I even saw a Ned Kelly’s Pizza place, and that was kind of a “you’re in Australia now” moment for me because you won’t see Ned Kelly’s pizza anywhere else in the world. (You see, he was an outlaw who got into a somewhat comical shootout with the law and the story and the character became the the stuff of legends in Oz.)

Considering the location where we here going, I was kind of hoping the ride would be full of youthful and fun people and it would kind of be like a party bus. I even had a couple of beers with me.

And indeed, a couple of cuties did get on board, but they were bored the whole journey, staring not even out the window but at their phones.

Anyway, we arrived in Byron Bay on time. After getting off the bus, I looked up and we were right in front of an open-air bar. Perfect!

I had a couple of beers, then went looking for accommodations, eventually settling into Nomads hostel.

I was happy, refreshed and had a great time in Byron Bay. Had I attempted to drive, I might have arrived a, well, wreck. While trying to avoid one.

Cheers!