Home is where the Corazón is

Tom Parry

THOSE who passed the Sale Showgrounds earlier this month may have noticed a peculiar site within its confines: a vintage double-decker bus.

The bus in question is a 1949 Leyland Titan that once serviced Sydney’s public transport network; but these days, it serves both as a mobile coffee shop, and home to a pair of keen adventurers.

Lawrence “Lorie” Norton first sighted the bus several years ago while working as a high-voltage glove and barrier linesman near Griffith, New South Wales.

“I drove past a quarry, and I looked down into the quarry and saw this big old, looming, double decker bus sitting down there,” Mr Norton explained.

“I stopped the ute, and one of the guys is like… ‘What are you going to do with it?’

“And I’m like, ‘I’m going to do a charity drive around Australian in it.'”

What followed was three years of restoring the bus, five years of “not wanting to look at it” and then 18 months of finishing the fit-out in Melbourne.

The interior was stripped of its seating and repurposed as a café, complete with kitchenette, drawers and cupboards, much of which is recycled from hard rubbish collections.

Meanwhile, the top floor of the bus was transformed into a living quarters, with an adjoining, enclosed balcony to overlook the scenery at the rear.

A wooden ladder connects the two decks, while a bathroom for the owners is hidden behind the kitchenette.

Mr Norton debuted the bus and his business at the Tiny House Festival in Bendigo in 2019, before embarking on a nationwide tour of Australia.

“I went all the way up the east coast, down through the centre – King’s Canyon, Uluru, Alice Springs – down to Adelaide, and that’s when I blew a radiator coming out of Cooper Pedy,” Mr Norton said.

Once the bus was repaired, Mr Norton continued on, before his journey ground to a halt again due to the onset of the pandemic.

“When COVID first hit, I ended up in the Indigenous communities up in the Kimberley, driving the school bus and as part of that, I ran barista training for all of the high school students within the community,” he said.

“And then I ended up down in Perth…at a maximum security prison as a barista trainer, which was pretty interesting.”

After starting his journey alone, without any hospitality experience, nor formal training as a barista, Mr Norton found somebody to share his journey with in Brooke Lumsden.

“We are part of a meditation group in Melbourne, and had known each other through a WhatsApp group for a fair while – I think two years,” Mr Norton said.

He was invited to operate at another Tiny House Festival in Bendigo, but after his experiences at the first event, Mr Norton said, “I had a 30-metre line out the door.” He then realised that he needed assistance.

“So I put the call out to the meditation community and I was like, ‘Does someone have café experience that they wouldn’t mind donating in pay to come and help me?’

“And Brooke reached out and said, ‘I’d love to.'”

Mr Norton describes meeting Ms Lumsden as the highlight of his journey, along with the other people he has encountered along the way.

“That’s definitely where it’s at for me – like, talking to everyone and finding out their experiences of life, and finding out their biggest lessons that they’ve learnt in life,” he said.

It’s that same passion, and a curiosity about other people’s stories, that Ms Lumsden enjoys most.

“You never know who you’re going to meet… you can have a conversation with someone and you just never know where your day’s going to weave or where you’re going to end up next,” she said.

“We live a lot in mystery.”

The refurbished bus has been christened Corazón – Spanish for “heart” – and trades under the business name Twice as Nice Gallery Café.

Wherever it goes, the bus is met with friendliness and generosity.

G’day Parks and Big 4 Holiday Parks have been “huge supporters” of Mr Norton’s cause, allowing him to stay at any of their parks or resorts for a discount.

And for its local visit, the bus was allowed to stay free of charge at the Showgrounds as part of an agreement with the Sale Show committee – a fellow non-profit organisation – for which Mr Norton expressed his gratitude.

Most who come to visit the bus will stay for a coffee or, if the weather is warm, a cup of homemade kombucha; others will purchase a crocheted cupcake, made with love by Mr Norton’s mum, or buy a painting crafted by Mr Norton himself with coffee waste – an idea that came to him when the bus broke down in Cooper Pedy, and a black fluid leaked onto a piece of paper.

By selling the artworks Mr Norton is, in his words, “painting my way back out of debt”.

“It’s the waste coffee that’s funding the charity drive with all of its fuel, money and everything, so that I can do the coffee for charity, so that I can get the waste product to paint with, so that I can do the charity drive, and we close the loop,” Mr Norton explained.

The charity element sees profits going towards Muscular Dystrophy Australia, with an estimated $60,000 raised thus far.

Mr Norton chose to support this cause after a close friend’s father was lost to the disease.

Additionally, Corazón also serves as a monument to Sydney’s public transport history – the bus is painted the same colours as it originally wore, while the interior is adorned with a conductor’s hat and ticket dispenser, similar to that used in decades gone by.

Mr Norton also possesses photos of the very same bus in service – he knows this because the original number plate is etched into the front window, and the chassis rail at the front.

“Commonwealth Engineering Co. would build a bus, and as they were building it… one boilermaker was just building that bus, so he would make all of the parts to fit whatever bus it was… You couldn’t take your driver’s door off this bus and go and put it on that bus,” Mr Norton said.

Much of the history has been sourced through the Sydney Bus Museum, and a collector, who generously donated many of his photos and wares to Mr Norton and Ms Lumsden.

As of such, Mr Norton is now considered a “bus nut”.

“If there’s anyone out there that does have an old double-decker bus and they want to get in contact with me, I can normally rustle-up some photos of their original bus in service and start connecting the history of the buses,” he said.

With their stay in Sale having concluded, Mr Norton and Ms Lumsden plan on travelling north along the east coast of Australia, and returning to Victoria along the same route.

With the bus limited to a top speed of 45 kilometres an hour, the journey will be a slow one, and Mr Norton will go to great lengths to ensure that other motorists are not inconvenienced.

“Most of the time I can get off the road and get traffic past,” he said.

“If there’s a section of road that I can’t, then I’ll either get off the road and wait until it’s stupid-o’clock in the morning and no-one else is on the road.

“Or, if I do get stuck on a section of road, I just pull up and go home and have a sleep – we’re home, so if traffic gets bad and we can’t get the traffic past, we’ll just hop off the road.”

Mr Norton gives a hesitant response when asked if he’ll do a full loop of the country: “I’ve done the big trips across the deserts before, and at 45 kilometres an hour it’s a long drive.”

He does, though, have a big-picture vision for Corazón’s future: “At some stage, I really want to just find somewhere with a big shed, and build a big land-based community café out of it; have some community gardens with some disability access in the gardens around it, maybe a bit of a camp ground, and continue to run it as a charity-based café where the profits are still going to charity, or the profits are going to people with disabilities.”

Those interested in learning more about Mr Norton and Ms Lumsden’s journey, or to donate to their cause, are encouraged to follow their handle on social media (@twiceasnicegallerycafe) or visit their official website: twiceasnice.com.au