So Long! It’s Been A Great Ride

If there was an award for the Happiest Female Bus Driver in the Hills, chances are Helen Flory would be up there at the top of the list. Helen has been brightening people’s days driving for Hills Bus for the past ten years and is now moving to greener pastures in Devonport, Tasmania.

Helen is one of only around 10 female e drives in the Hills Bus fleet, having started in Customer service at State Transit over 17 years ago. She then trained to drive buses and hasn’t looked back since. Each year Helen painstakingly decorated her bus for Christmas enjoying the smiles her creative work brought to both passengers and other drivers alike.

“Occasionally I also decorated one of the buses at Easter with a multitude of stuffed bunnies and wore bunny ears when I drove. I enjoyed doing this, but nothing beat the rapture and delight to see on faces young and old when they joined my special buses,” Helen recounts. There are many challenges to being a Bus Driver, including rude or drunk passengers, people passing out on board and missing stops, navigating bad drivers on the road and of course the age old complexity of finding a comfort stop when nature calls, but Helen has dealt with all these issues in her own inimitable style, and always with a smile on her face. She says that the people of the Hills have been a pleasure to drive for.