We decided to travel from Townsville to Brisbane on the Greyhound bus rather than drive as it was a good price and we thought it would be a fun way to travel – well after a trip of 14days, 1361 kms, 7 different buses, 6 city stops and 24 hours cumulative sat on the bus, we thought differently!
From Townsville we passed through acres of sugar cane, and then as we got closer to Bowen, the crops changed to fruit – a lot of mangos (which are deliciously sweet) and passed the salt lakes before turning into the small town of Bowen – a town with some lovely murals telling the towns history and incredibly wide streets!!!
We also found the “little mango” but the famous “big mango” is out on the main highway.
There is a historic jetty,
and Bowen was home to the Catalina Flying Boats during the second world war – a memorial to these is on Santa Barbara Parade. Bowen is also where some of the scenes in the film Australia were filmed in 2007/2008 (Bowen became Darwin!).
It was incredibly hot and humid, but we did manage to see some of the town and whilst we hopped from shade to shade we met some great people. Sadly, we didn’t get up to Horseshoe or Rose Bay, which are supposed to be gorgeous, so if you get to this area – get a car to explore further.
We spent a couple of days over New Year in Mackay – the sugar Capitol of Queensland (had intended on staying in Airlie, gateway to the Whitsundays, but too expensive and busy at this time of year – pretty tho). Whilst it’s not a tourist destination we did find some little gems hidden away – crocheted Christmas tree and street decorations, some street murals, a lovely (but very hot) river walk, some nice Art Deco buildings, a great little coffee shop/bar with quirky decor (Coco Cubana) and a round pool table!!
Then it was on to the beef capital of Australia – Rockhampton, where we stayed in an old heritage hotel with a four-poster bed no less!!!! Lovely and cool with tall ceilings and wide verandahs to keep the sun off.
The only downside is that it’s in the wrong end of town, and it was crazy hot.
We managed to go out and admire some of the beautiful old buildings here – Quay Street is Queensland’s longest National Trust heritage-listed street apparently (and with a lovely sign warning you about snakes on the Fitzroy river walkway!), and watch the freight trains come rumbling down the street – there’s even railway signals along the road where you’d expect to see normal traffic lights!
Unfortunately, the Great Western Hotel was closed for the week – it would have been interesting to check this famous place out for bull riding on Wednesdays and Fridays!!
Oh, and of course, we had to try a steak here in the old Criterion Hotel – delicious.
Since we’ve been in Australia we’ve been skirting around various events – severe heat warnings, bushfires, cyclones and flooding and whilst we’d been incredibly lucky, the rain eventually caught up with us (or we caught up with the rain!). One good thing, though, is it got a bit cooler. We spent a day in Bundaberg and managed to get on a distillery tour, which was highly entertaining.
The museum has some hilarious information boards about the history of Bundaberg rum, and the tongue in cheek narrative continued throughout the tour. Seemingly molasses are a byproduct of the sugar cane production process and in the 1800’s it was just wasted, but there was so much of it, it was a nuisance – then some enterprising folk decided to make rum out of it and so Bundaberg rum came into being.
As part of the tour you get two free tastings – we tried winter spiced and ginger beer, salted caramel with cream (both delicious), an original bundy and coke and a select rum with ginger beer (so so). Not bad for a couple who don’t usually drink dark rum! We finished the day with a delicious prawn meal at Grunskes (thanks to a recommendation from our uber driver) watching the rain come down the river! Then, back on the bus to Hervey Bay (marketed as the whale capital of Australia) for a couple of nights.
We’d thought about visiting Fraser Island, but it was so wet we didn’t bother. We just managed to catch a glimpse of it through the rain from Urangan Pier!
Our final stop was Noosa – although quite a small community is very commercial compared to other places we’ve stopped at during this trip – lots of young backpackers and Australian holiday makers stay here for the beaches, river, parks and shopping – it’s only about 2 hours from Brisbane so easy for city dwellers to get away.
We had some fantastic ice cream at The Scoop, a great little shop decorated as an old American diner
and a delicious curry at Leela in Noosa Plaza. Noosa also has a great free bus system in place for the holidays which was a huge bonus (otherwise you have to get a travel card as the buses don’t take cash or debit/credit cards normally). We walked along the Noosa River
and stopped off for fish and chips and sat eating them whilst watching the rainbow parakeets come back to roost for the evening, and the fruit bats fly out to hunt.
Then, on to our last bus of the trip to Brisbane.
So all in all, the Greyhound was a cheap way to travel and has a easy booking system but it has its limitations due to poor public transport at some of the places we stopped at meaning we didn’t get to visit all the places of interest that would have been accessible by car. We also thought that it would be quite a sociable way to travel, but it didn’t turn out that way – most people sleep or have their headphones on!
Would we do it again – probably not, but we did get to visit places we wouldn’t have normally and met some lovely people along the way.