Unlike the many glorious backdrops we’ve seen in recent ABC Best Bus photo competition winners, October’s winner is simple yet effective.
Taken in Canberra, Ray Meli from Crowthers Coaches has won the competition with a lovely photo of a Crowthers Coaches vehicle taking school students through the capital city.
Yet there were plenty of other great entries for the October Best Bus competition that ABC would love to commend.
A recently refurbished Irizar for Glenorie Coaches was photographed by David from Coachcare and was a very worthy finalist, while Nick Peters’ terrific shot of a vintage looking Premier Motor Service coach came very close to winning.
Steven Baker’s photo of one of his vehicles in Coober Pedy was also a highlight, as another Firefly photo from Brett Hewitt rounded out our finalists.
Despite all of these entries being terrific, none of them ended up beating Ray Meli’s photo of the Crowthers Coaches vehicle in full flight.
The bus and coach operator is approaching 100 years of operating and has a rich history in the Australian transport scene – one of its first charters it performed was taking people from Sydney to watch Kingsford Smith fly on the first commercial flight from Australia to New Zealand in 1933.
Meli says this winning photo was taken while on a program, running schools to Canberra to learn about how the government works.
“The coach in this photo is the old girl in the fleet,” Meli told ABC.
“It’s closing in on 1.1 million kilometres and is as tight as a pin.”
As the winner of the monthly competition, he has received a free 12-month subscription to ABC magazine, while the winning photo is also being shown off as ABC’s Facebook cover photo for October.
Don’t forget to send through your Best Bus photos for November and the months ahead via email and keep an eye on our Facebook page for more details!