Backpacker Buzz

As a Canadian who's no stranger to road trips, who's done the Vancouver-Banff drive in a day and ridden a train from Toronto to Vancouver, I've surprised myself with how often I've sided with the Europeans. Twenty hours is far too long to spend on a bus without getting somewhere closer to Mars.

But that's what I did from Exmouth to Broome, leaving at 10:50 pm on a Thursday, arriving at 6:50 pm the next day. 

Luckily the bus wasn't full, or even close to being full so there was room to stretch out. And for a few beautiful minutes around 2 a.m. when I stretched my legs across the aisle and rested my head on a perfectly bunched up hoodie on the window, thoughts of comfort even passed through my mind. I felt I could stay in that same comfortable position all night, and well into the morning. Eight minutes later I was rolled in completely the opposite direction - my head trying to wedge itself in the space between the seat and the wall, my feet adjusting the overhead lights and my hands alternately slapping myself across the face in frustration. 

Unless you're one of those mysterious creatures that falls asleep as soon as your body makes contact with anything upholstered, there is no way to be comfortable on a bus, plane or train for longer than an hour. But that's where the special skill of resignation comes in. You're not going to get there any faster by being pissed off about it so sit back, turn off your brain, and pretend it's not happening. 

On the flip side, there are a lot of things to like about long-distance bus travel. That cliched freedom of the road - the feeling of just going, straight ahead, to somewhere different. This is especially good if you're coming from Exmouth (I'll get over it eventually). I like the mindless activity of staring out a window with my MP3 player on, even if the scenery is as unchanging as northwest Australia's. I even like the challenge of using an on-board bathroom, and imagining how much more challenging it would be if I was male (sometimes this isn't difficult to imagine thanks to evidence left behind by some of the more challenged males). I like rolling into random towns at random hours and seeing how random locals are going about their lives. I like watching the sun rise in the middle of nowhere, somewhere not many people watch the sun rise, and where I will never see it rise again.

Long-distance transportation is an inevitable part of long-term travel, whether you're stuck on something with wings or wheels. How do you kill the time - are you a window watcher, a power napper or a different breed altogether?