Thursday, 17th December 2009 - The Premier Bus (again)

So we have been on the Premier bus a few times. You may recall a previous entry where the police had to be called for a aggressive customer who was not able to board because of overbooking. Well this was the premier bus from hell.

First off it looked like half of china was getting on the bus and holding up the queue for ages. Finally we managed to check in and board. The bus was fully booked and so we all only got one seat each. We was praying the bus would be half empty and that we would have an opportunity spread out.

We set off and made good progress, about 4 hours into our journey we hit the first snag. Australia only has one highway. The highway is a single carriage way. Occasionally it would split into a dual carriage way, for over taking. At 5pm today there was a serious crash on the highway. A car was over taking a lorry or bus and had a head on collision with a lorry/bus. There was two fatalities at least. It was know 11pm and the road was still closed. With the 15km traffic jam. There are no other routes to take to go south.

Shortly after midnight we started moving again slowly as the road was cleared. Still was was three hours behind schedule.

A few hours later things turned sour even more. There was some d***heads at the back of the bus drinking 'goon and rum. We was all asleep, at the front. But was woken to the sound of shouting from the back. Then another passenger telling the bus driver about an assault at the back of the bus.

It appeared two friends had got a little drunk and one had got a smack to the face. The bus driver was not happy and after shouting at the man he threatened to ditch him at the next towns police station, Bunderburg.

When we got to the Police station at Bonderburg, we stopped. But for some reason the bus driver failed to follow through on what he had said. So we carried on and there was no more problems. Until we reached Harvey Bay.

Here at Harvey bay the drunk friends got off the bus. I cannot be clear if they were asked to leave or this was there stop. But as soon as they got off they started fighting again. One was clearly drunker than the other and was not able put up any kind of a fight. He could barely stand. After a couple of minutes of watching them fight (which was more like something out of a carry on movie) the police turned up. Both guys, within seconds were man handled and had there heads pressed against the police cars and handcuffs applied.