One of the most endearing things about Australia, and I mean this most sincerely, is the fact that 95% of the country is covered in a vast expanse of nothing. After leaving the hustle of city life, the coach to the Gold Coast passes almost the whole way through miles of untouched virgin forest land, National parks and huge lakes with shimmering blue water. Being in the middle of nowhere with no light from cities to illuminate the sky, a coach trip at night is rewarded by the most amazing view of the constellations above - I feel sure that Greyhound Coaches would make a fortune out of getting some open-topped or glass roofed buses for it's routes.

Everyone in Oz travels by coach, and this makes it a very enjoyable experience. Far from being alone, miles from home, I find myself on a 16 hour trip with various other travellers who are going home, getting away for a while, or just exploring the country like me. Many of them are Australians, of course, but there is also a good mix of Americans, Canadians and Europeans on board. Bus drivers over here don't like to be called drivers - in fact, to do so seems to be considered only slightly worse than genocide. If you want to stay on the right side of the man behind the wheel, remember that he is in fact a coach captain and that his duties go far beyond merely getting the bus from A to B. He takes great pride in his responsibilities and will have the passengers playing bowls in the aisle, keep them amused with anything from stand up comedy to Elvis impressions, stop at every rest stop so people can get off for a smoke or have a twenty minute leg stretch, and generally make you feel like he's your best friend. On my tour in 1995 our driver was a thick-haired eccentric type with a bushy moustache who spent a month driving us around Oz and making us laugh. On the last day of the tour, he got on the bus totally bald and without the lip-hair and told us "sod it, I just can't pretend any more!" - and that just about sums up the Australian coach captain. On our way back to Sydney, I remember turning onto the main highway and being surprised to find it totally flooded - so what would have otherwise been a quiet, sad afternoon as we came full circle and prepared to say goodbye to all the new friends we had made over the last month instead became an opportunity to go swimming without leaving the coach. Another trait of the Australian coach driver is that they aren't in the habit of letting anything get the better of them, so Brent simply shrugged his shoulders and headed into the floods as slowly as he could. Other cars were turning around and going off to find an alternate route, but we just drove straight through with the water rising around us until we were submerged up to the door and people were lifting their bags onto the seats so that they didn't get soaked on the floor. Brent was probably hoping that we'd think he was some sort of hero, but most of us were too busy marching up and down the coach and pushing each other out of the way in an attempt to capture the best shots of the flooding on video.

For the duration of the 1995 tour, our travel rep Lisa had been adding more clues every day to a riddle which she didn't think any of us would be able to solve, and she gave us the last clue as we came into Sydney. According to my diary at the time, this last clue immediately gave it to me and I jumped up from my seat with the solution, winning myself the stunning prize of a tea towel with the words of Waltzing Mathilda printed on it. The thing is, reading back the riddle and ultimate solution as I've written them in my diary, I can honestly say that not only is it the stupidest riddle I've ever heard, but I cannot even imagine for one moment how I could've got the answer without cheating - and I certainly don't remember sleeping with Lisa! The riddle was: God doesn't have one, and you don't either. My hat had one when it was new; a pen, a mobile phone, a can of Coke and the posts by the side of the road all have one; and one plus one has one. What am I?

And the answer, which was questionable to say the least, was an equal. Thinking back on it, for getting the correct answer to a riddle like that, I think I should've won a world tour - not a bloody tea towel!

There is, in fact, a famous song by Ted Egan called Our coach captain, which all drivers like to play to their passengers at every opportunity just in case we ever forget our place. The Australian coach captain, according to the song, is an all round singer, dancer, comedian, lover and good bloke. It goes on to explain that he is also your fairy bloody godmother and looks just a little bit like god. Unfortunately, due to copyright, I can't reprint the lyrics here - but I would be more than surprised if they're not lurking on the internet somewhere. Mind you, it's really not the same without that catchy tune, so if you can find somewhere that sells Ted Egan tracks, you could do worse than seek out Our coach captain.

Rest stops en-route to anywhere in Australia can be small out of the way mom and pop operations miles from anywhere, but are often large roadside diners where waitresses called Marlene,Darlene and Charlene take your order with a cigarette stuck nonchalantly from the corner of the mouth and then try and beef you up with the god of all fry-ups - even if you only wanted toast. It's almost worth the journey just to eat. It's also a great opportunity to get to know your fellow travellers and make new friends, and I know people who have made lifelong mates just by sharing a bus across the wide open stretches of Australia.

The journey from Sydney to Brisbane via Surfers Paradise and the Gold Coast, believe it or not, is one of the shorter journeys you can take by bus, but even this takes about 16 hours. There were three services a day and I elected to take the 6.00PM option so that I would be travelling overnight and arrive on the Gold Coast first thing in the morning ready to get out there and explore everything Surfer's Paradise had to offer. In fact, I fell asleep after the first rest stop and didn't wake up again until we arrived. The only major tourist destination on the way is probably the famous lighthouse at Byron Bay, just outside Sydney. Built on a headland and next to a cliff with a drop of over one hundred metres to the sea, the lighthouse really does create an imposing image against the sky, and you can see why it appears in so many photographs. The tower is quite some way from any built up area, and apart from the keepers cottage a short walk away, the surrounding ground is covered in nothing but thick grass and foliage - to get to it, you have to approach along a concrete block walkway which runs up the side of the hill and along the edge of the cliff from the car park, fighting against the strong wind coming in from the sea. Apparently, the Cape Byron lighthouse is the most easterly light in the country, unless you count the torches of people on the beach far below who could be seen rushing into the sea with surfboards tucked under their arms even as the sun was starting to set. Unusually, the tower isn't very tall - the ground on which it stands is so high that the light can be seen from miles around anyway, so what makes the Byron Bay lighthouse interesting is that it looks more like a little white castle. Standing by the cliff top and looking over the railings, which couldn't have been any closer to the edge if they'd tried, we were all quite fascinated by the people throwing themselves into the sea below, which certainly looked quite rough - the sea, not the people. It would appear that Byron Bay is some sort of major surfing destination - quite a few of us didn't want to leave when it was time to move on, as the distant surfers down below had started to put on a bit of a show for us spectators high up on the cliff. Australians do like to show off.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.