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Published: November 22nd 2010
After an amazing few days in Byron Bay it was time to move on up the coast, so we decided to go to a large town on the Gold Coast called Surfers Paradise about an hour away, predominantly so we could check out one of its famous water parks. We had booked on a bus at 6.30pm and it was on time and empty which was a good sign, so we jumped on and sadly said goodbye to Byron, one of our favourite places so far. After a few minutes we realised the driver was not the full ticket but as we were the only ones on a 66 seater bus we thought he may just be bored and wanted to talk to us, so we made small talk for a while until he announced he had gone the wrong way out of Byron, but it was fine as we would only be 15 minutes late to Surfers. We turned around and continued the journey, briefly stopping at a small beach town called Coolangatta before carrying on to Surfers which was less than 20k away, according to the signs.
Now the road to Surfers is a main highway and follows
the coast, so we were a bit surprised when 15 minutes after leaving Coolangatta we were on a small windy road with no street lights, seemingly going in the wrong direction. We didn't say anything to the driver at first as we thought he must know where is going, but after a further 15 minutes of following this windy road in the dark, hearing him swearing and muttering undert his breath and already 45 minutes late to Surfers, we asked him how much longer it would be until we got there. This is when things turned bad...he answered 'Not sure im f-ing lost but i think this road leads back to the highway so im going to follow it until it comes out'...not quite the anser we were expecting, and by this point we were a bit annoyed as even we as tourists could tell we were going the wrong way! We said nothing though as we thought he would be able to turn around soon if the road didn't lead to the highway like the driver thought, athough were getting a bit worried when we hadn't seen another house or car for the last 10 miles. Suddenly he slammed
on the brakes and swore as if he had terrets syndrome, before turning round to us and saying 'S*it this road doesn't lead to the highway and i can't turn around now'...this is also when we saw a huge sign saying 'Welcome to Carumba Valley National Park' just a few feet away from the low narrow bridge that we were now sat on...and we stated to panic....
We had no choice but to drive into the national park as the road was too small for the huge bus to turn around in, so gently went over this bridge (which we thought might collapse under the weight of the bus) before driving up a dirt road in darkness into the national park, in the middle of no where, over an hour late for our destination. We pulled into a car park and at first though its fine, we can just turn around here and go back, and the worst thing will be we are late arriving in Surfers, but then the real fear set in when the driver started to panic as the bus was too long to reverse it or turn it around in the small car park!! By
this point we were both really worried, the driver was having a melt down, and we were stuck in the middle of no where in a national park in Australia, just the two of us and a mad driver, and no phone reception, in the pitch black...
The driver tried several attempts at resversing to get out of the car park but the bus was too big and you couldn't see anything in the dark, so then Scott got off the bus with his torch to try and direct the driver and his bus to get us out of this situation. Vic was worried as she was on the bus trying to keep an eye on Scott who was in the middle of this pitch black car park on his own, whilst also encouraging the driver that we would get out of the park (as by this point he was chain smoking on the bus, shouting and saying we wouldn't get out, he didn't know what to do and we'd be stuck there all night...!). After over an hour and a half of this, and 4 smashed wndows and a trashed bus later from the driver hitting things in
the dark in order to try and get the bus out, we all realised the bus wouldn't be able to turn around and started to really panic that we would be stuck in the national park on the middle of no where all night, with thoughts of horror films we had seen running through our minds, seriously wondering if we would even make it out at all!
Then as if things couldn't get any worse, a car pulled up and turned its headlights off, but no one got out. It was gone 9pm now and we thought who on earth would be in a national park miles away from anywhere at this time...we thought perhaps the driver had set the whole thing up and we were about to meet a gruesome end...we were actually really scared at this point although we kept it together pretty well. After looking at this car from the bus for 10 mins Scott decided we had nothing to lose by approaching it and seeing if whoever was inside could help us get out. So bravely he went to the car which was about 10 metres away, torch in one hand, pen knife in the
other (just in case) and was close to drivers door when he tripped over something in the darkness; the torch and penknife went flying and so did Scott, but luckily the driver had opened the door by this point, and inside the car was a young couple who had gone for a drive to talk about their relationship, so no mass murderer! We told them our situation and amazingly they helped us out of this nightmare by reversing back behind the bus with their lights on so the bus could reverse all the way out of the park and back to the road to turn around. Until the bus was facing the right way on the road we still didn't think we would get of the park, but somehow we did and we set off on our way to Surfers, over 3 hours after leaving Byron on a jounrey that should have taken only an hour!
It was horrendous and afterwards we both revealed to each other how scared we were, but thank god we were fine and arrived in Surfers shorly after. The bus driver appologised to us and said he hoped he wouldn't lose his job as
if he did he might hang himself! So in the end, after all that we went through, we felt quite sorry for him as he was new to the route...but still, it was one of the worst moments of our lives and definately the scariest time in our tavels so far. Unfortunately when we finally arrived in Surfers at 10pm we were greeted by club pr's, neon lights, and lots of drunk people (just what we needed after the bus journey from hell), as Surfers is a big party town and quite built up, not what we wanted after Byron, so we probably didn't get the best impression of it, plus our hostel was out of town and as it was so late we couldn't get the pick up so had to pay for a taxi and it felt everything was against us that night! So we decided that after going to the water park the next day we would get on a bus straight to Brisbane. We arrived at the hostel and were so tired we went straight to bed, still thinking about the horrible time we had had on the bus but looking forward to the water park
in the morning.
Up bright and early we went to the water park, Wet n Wild, and had a great day in the sun going on all the rides, including gently rubber rings an scary vertical drop slides where you are held in a glass case on a platform before being dropped! It was a really good park and had loads of cool rides and slides plus it was really hot, so we spent almost all day there before heading to get our bus to Brisbane which was due to take 2 hours, but after the nightmare we'd had before were were a bit hesitant as to what would happen on this bus! Luckily it was fine and we arrived in Brisbane on time at 9pm, so went to our hostel for a shower and change before going out to experience what the city had to offer in terms of nightlife. We went to a few good bars and had a good night out before going back to the hostel at 2am for a nights sleep. When we woke up the next day it was really hot again so we walked through the main city which was cool and
a bit like the Westminster area of London around the Thames, before getting to the huge man made lagoon and chilling in the sun there for a few hours. The lagoon is on the river and was really cool in the heart fo the city, if only there was something like that at home! We really liked Brisbane and it would have been cool to spend somemore time there; despite most people we met saying they didn't like it we liked it more than Melbourne and Sydney! We then went back to our hostel and sat by the roof top pool (yes hostels have roof top pools!) before catching our next bus to a small town called Noosa, 2 hours away, for a day at the famous Australia Zoo!
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Skis
non-member comment
Sounds like Wolf Creek!
Not sure a pen knife would've done the job, Scotty - have you seen Crocodile Dundee ("that's not a knife...this is a knife")? 4 more weeks for us then we will be on our way over there. How much longer are you in Australia for? ENJOY!