May 11th (Monday) - Day 71 - Journey to Magnetic Island
What started as a routine journey on the bus from one place to another turned into a nightmare. Firstly I opted to go to the supermarket in the rain to get supplies so I boarded the bus drenched. 2 hours later we reached a rest stop. Instead of me describing it, the best thing I can do is let you read my following complaint letter to the bus company…

To whom it may concern

We would like to bring a number of driver short comings to your attention which had resulted in a very disappointing service from Greyhound.

My partner and I are travelling down the east coast of Australia using a 5,000KM pass. On Monday 11th of May we boarded the GX111 service from Mission Beach to Townsville, driven by Graham.

It was a very wet day, so much so that the occupants of the bus were getting wet inside the coach. Numerous window seals were worn out allowing streams of water in around the windows.

Upon arrival into Cardwell (a rest stop location) the announcement by the driver made us feel that we were on a special needs bus. The tone and nature of the announcement stating not to bring food and drink back onto the bus was very condescending repeating everything and stating that we would probably do it anyway. A simple statement would of sufficed.

Just before our departure time we were told by the driver of the Premier Bus Company that the road ahead had been closed because of an accident up ahead and as a result they would be delayed until further notice. We understand that Greyhound have no control over such things but it is the following actions that undermined our confidence in the service. Firstly we could not find our driver to get confirmation that the Greyhound service would in fact be delayed. Thirty minutes later when we did find him he was very nonchalant and unconcerned by the numerous passengers wanting to find out what was going on. Of course he did not know when the road was going to be reopened but he could have passed on any information he did have. For the next five hours the only information we could get was from other bus drivers (not our own). Whenever we asked we were given a very blunt "I don't know what is going on" - how come the other drivers of other services knew?
When he finally started to tell us what was going on it was to say that he might have to return to Cairns with the bus we were travelling on. When asked what would happen to us it said it was up for the office to decide and that we should all give the 1300 Greyhound number a call. In our view this is totally unacceptable. The driver should have not passed on this information unless it was true and if true he should have come to us with the group solution and not leaving forty odd people to fend for themselves. During the conversations numerous references were made to the pen pushers in the office not caring about the customers. This took our confidence down even further.

During the afternoon we asked if we could return to the bus to retrieve personal belongings. Our reply was a very snappy "Yes - but hurry up" - what was the rush?
Also numerous people requested to return to the bus to sit down as the bus shelter was wet and windy, and after six hours people were sating to become cold. The answer was a clear no and when asked why the response was along the lines that other peoples belongings were on there and indigenous people are likely to enter the bus and steal such items. Also during this time the driver offended many passengers with his manner.

When the traffic finally did start to move the driver was in no rush to get the service moving again. He waited a good 20 minutes until he opened the bus to allow us on.

You might be thinking that our confidence is quite low at this point but as you will soon see it sank even lower. We swapped drivers but remained on the same bus. The driver moved off with the hand brake still on. This may have been by accident or a technical issue. No one quite knew. After thirty minutes an alarm started to go off, this alarm was ignored for a further twenty minutes until thick plumes of smoke were coming from the rear axel. At this point the driver pulled over. Everyone could see the smoke so some people believed us to be on fire. However the driver just got off the bus without saying anything. This left numerous people not knowing what to do. Panic and common sense of course won over and everyone got off the bus. We feel this incident could have been avoided if the driver had taken note of the alarm.

As you can tell from the above my partners and I confidence and trust in the Greyhound service has been demolished.

Despite this we managed to make some friends from the experience that we continued to bump into along the way. Our next problem occurred when we got to Townsville. Because of the broken down bus we missed a ferry by 5 minutes and as such had to wait a further 90 minutes for the next one. Once on the ferry it was a very quick journey to Magnetic Island. We then got on the connection bus which took us to our hostel. Our room had been upgraded so there was one saving grace to the day.

May 12th (Tuesday) - Day 72 - Magnetic Island
We had seen that our hostel had an animal park attached to it so we opted to take the 2 hour tour not really knowing what we had let ourselves in for. It turned out to be really amazing. We had a guide who you could have mistaken for crocodile Dundee. The first thing we got to do was hold Koala. Next we held a snake followed by some lizards. Croc Dundee gave us loads of info as we went. Then we got to hold the most exciting thing of all. A 3year old crocodile. It was tiny but never the less I wrestled it into my hands for the pictures hehe. We also got to hold a parrot that ate seeds from your lips almost like a kiss. That afternoon we walked to a number of secluded bays. One of which turned out to be a nudist beach. The bays were a really long way from our hostel and really hard work to reach, but well worth the trip once we reached them. That evening we found a Mexican restaurant that gave us a very large Mexican hat with a very large margarita jug. Hence the drunken pictures with us wearing the very stupid hat!