Belinda Adams and Darryl Hamm have been driving the bus since July 18 and have driven more than 6000 kms. 

They began in Brisbane and intend on returning for Brain Injury Week, which begins on August 21. They have passed Broken Hill along the journey, where Ms Adams was born and raised. 

Ms Adams has a son Dylan, who was 19 and a heavy diesel mechanic, when he suffered brain injury in a car crash.

She had flown to Broken Hill to visit family on the last flight, and could not return until the next day.

Dylan was in a critical condition in the Princess Alexandra Hospital and the medical advice was he would unlikely survive the night. 

More than five years later he works as a wardsman in the same hospital. His mother said not everyone was as lucky to recover as well from acquired brain injury. 

The issue that Ms Adams had was that once a patient leaves the hospital system there was little awareness, knowledge of support to help them. 

“There’s nothing medically at that point you can do for the brain, but there’s a long road to recovery and rehabilitation,” she said. 

“If we have more funding at the beginning for rehabilitation places at the most optimal time in their recovery, you will have less of a drain in the system later on. 

“Quite often you have people living on disability payments and carer payments. if we put more money into the start of the journey perhaps we wouldn’t see the drain on the system at the end.” 

The purple bus was a “talking point” for people in communities across the country that it travelled through and helped offer available services. “Quite often the remote communities have even less resources and are forgotten about,” Ms Adams said. 

“And we need more employers down the track to open their doors to people with different abilities so we can have a more inclusive society, and people can get back to a level of independence.”