If you’ve ever travelled through the Gold Coast, there’s a large chance you’ve spotted one of the famous Lonestar Coachlines buses.
With distinctive lime-green mirrors and a legacy in the Queensland industry spanning more than two decades, the business has become synonymous with the city.
Over the years, the business has operated key contracts for Department of Transport & Main Roads and NSW Trains, while also ensuring kids from prestigious Gold Coast schools like The Southport School, St Hilda’s School and Emmanuel College all make it to homeroom on time.
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Being a significant Translink operator on the Gold Coast, second only to Kinetic, the company also operates numerous charter, touring and inbound services.
While to the untrained eye it appears as if this success happened overnight, it was actually the hard work and determination of managing director Les Bultitude that cemented the business in history.
Bultitude has worked within the bus industry for his entire working life, going back 31 years to Grafton, NSW.
“My first job was actually working for Woolworths as a casual,” Bultitude told ABC.
“However I would often help Fred Schwinghammer of Grafton Busco with his horses that were housed behind the bus depot.
“It didn’t take long before we had built a connection, and Fred put me behind the wheel of a bus on a farm road and taught me how to drive. Those were the glory days of the industry in my opinion and so much fun.”
Soon completing his higher school certificate, Bultitude was originally enrolled to go to university, but having bonded with Schwinghammer and taken an interest in the industry, decided to defer his studies.
“I remember telling my parents, who are third generation farmers, of my decision, and you could tell they were disappointed,” he says.
“But I knew this is what I wanted to do.”
Not long after his unconventional lessons, Bultitude officially commenced working as a school bus driver in May 1993, where at 19 years old, he became the youngest licensed bus driver in NSW. The school bus that he was allocated to drive as his first run was the very same that took him to and from school less than a year prior.
“I look back on my memories of Fred and Grafton Busco fondly and learnt a lot over those next few years from Fred and other Grafton business mentors,” Bultitude says.
Taking from their knowledge and expertise it was only four years later that Bultitude had saved a large enough deposit to start his own operations.
“I purchased my first coach, a 1988 Austral Tourmaster, from Port Macquarie bus service in 1997,” he says.
“I was only 23 then and I remember vividly how difficult it was to convince Esanda to finance me into that first bus at such a young age.
“I certainly received no assistance, either emotionally or financially from anyone to enter the industry so it was not easy getting to the stage of buying that first bus I assure you.”
From there, things began to flourish, with Bultitude purchasing Grafton Glass & Aluminium and the Shell Grafton Transit Roadhouse. At the age of 25, he had at least 50 employees working under him. It was at the Roadhouse that he also secured the patronage of Greyhound Pioneer, McCafferty’s and Kirklands/Premier.
Bultitude attributes a lot of his early success to the support he received from his pop, who worked with him on the buses and roadhouse, often washing buses on their return from Canberra at 2:00 am for turnarounds, up until he was near 80 years of age.
“He always encouraged and supported me my entire life and taught me that hard work pays off. I will forever be grateful to the values he instilled in me and miss him dearly.”
In 2002, an awakening in his personal life led him to make some dramatic changes, ultimately selling all of his business interests in Grafton and moving to the Gold Coast.
With a fresh start comes new opportunities, and Bultitude soon saw himself working at Murrays Coaches under the guidance of his mentor and friend Lyle Friske, who encouraged him to get back into it and start buying buses once more.
“That is when I started operating predominantly on the Gold Coast, as a sub-contract operator.”
Over the years Les has gone from a single bus sub-contract bus operator to the operator of one of the Gold Coast’s largest modern fleet of coaches, having acquired along the way many long-established well-known operations such as Surfers Paradise Coaches from Don Phelan, Sainty’s Bus Service from Glen Sainty, Tamborine Mountain Bus Service from Chris Erickson and Point to Point Coaches, merging all these businesses under the Lonestar umbrella.
“I’ve enjoyed some stand-out times whilst working in the industry such as when I had coaches at the 2000 Olympic Games. I actually met my good friend and owner/operator of Mullumbimby Bus Service, Garry Hughes there who has incidentally advised me personally on the sale of Lonestar,” he says.
“More recently a standout event was when I supplied coaches and acted as the depot manager for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.”
Over the last few years Les was nominated and successfully voted in to represent the Queensland Tourist Coach segment of the industry with QBIC, a position which he has been again invited to retain.
“After dedicating so much of my life to the industry I will continue to give my little bit back to the industry and will fight on for the good of the industry via QBIC and representations to the government.”
From meeting the love of his life, to seeing success in the industry, it’s clear that moving to the Gold Coast was one of the best decisions Les has ever made, despite there still being some issues he encountered.
“My time in the industry has not been without difficulties. Not least of all was when I was attacked because of my sexuality from within the industry and more recently undoubtedly, covid,” he says.
“No matter what minority an operator may belong to, if any, I strongly encourage them to always hold their head high and not get down in the mud no matter how much you are attacked.
“ If you concentrate on providing the customers with a quality product and what they ask for, success will follow. Times change and the bus industry is not immune to that so bus operations must develop alongside it.”
Now, Bultitude has decided that his time as a bus and coach operator has come to an end, recently selling Lonestar Coachlines to Belbaker Bus Charter.
Bultitude assured ABC the Lonestar name and reputation will continue, just under the guidance of the Belbaker team now.
“They are making a point to keep it all the same as it was before. All of the drivers and management will move over to Belbaker as well.”
Moving forward, Bultitude plans to use his newly found free time to spend time with a special someone.
“Operating your own business does give you a lot of autonomy and flexibility but there is a lot of sacrifice that goes along with it. The sacrifice of the proprietor of any successful business is what I will not miss though,” he says.
“A big part in influencing my decision to sell Lonestar was the little seven-year-old girl in my life, Emma, whose name has always been proudly displayed above the door of the Lonestar flagship.
“I intend on dedicating a lot more of my time to her and returning to the farm to build that to what it should be.”
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