Tag: buses

50th Birthday Holiday 1: The First Stage

An account of a problematic start to this year’s Scottish holdiay, courtesy of LNER. Also a photo gallery of pictures all taken at various stages of the journey.

I am now ensconced in a tiny hamlet named Achosnich in the far west of the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, which is itself the westernmost past of mainland Britain, where I and my parents are having a holiday around my 50th birthday. The day itself is Saturday, for which I have already scheduled a small post which will come out as near as can be scheduled precisely 50 years after my birth. This post would normally have been entitled ‘Getting There’, but as will become clear this process has been somewhat less straightforward than it should have been.

THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN…

Up until about 11:30AM yesterday, for all that the day of my birthday had meant a Sunday to Sunday holiday booking and thus travel and the most unreliable day for using public transport, I was feeling pleased with how things were progressing. I had booked from Peterborough to Crianlarich, the closest place to our final destination that I could sensibly book to, and to guard against choppy waters in respect of the opening leg of the journey had opted for the safe option of the 9:25 bus from Lynn to Peterborough, rather than the 10:25 which would have had to run very late to get me in trouble, or to not run altogether. A clear run on the bus saw at Peterborough Station with comfortably over an hour until the train on which I was booked was due, so I purchased some light refreshments and killed time in the station cafeteria, before checking the departure information screen, still with masses of time to spare…

…GANG AFT AGLEY

…it was that look at the departure information screen that blew my travel plans sky high. There in big red lettering against the 12:18 to Edinburgh Waverley was the dread word “CANCELLED”, along with a perfunctory line about a faulty train. Fortunately my parents were not by the point irretrievably committed, and we were able to arrange for me to get the 13:18 to Edinburgh, on which I had established that my ticket would still be valid, since the cancellation was entirely the fault of LNER, and they would pick me up there and we would go together in their car to be a place they had booked that was between Edinburgh and our final destination. There were a few problems around Edinburgh, but we got to where we were staying overnight in time for latish supper. The journey to Edinburgh, save for it being a crowded train (Sunday is a light travelling day, but a combination of a cancelled train and the fact that Sunderland had won a play off final and with it promotion to the Premiership on the Saturday meant that space was at a premium) to the extent that I did not get a seat until Newark Northgate. However, by the time of the stretch between York and Edinburgh, which is where all the scenic stuff is I was not merely seated, I was in a window seat, albeit facing against the direction of travel.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here is my photo gallery…

One of the reasons I quite like starting journeys to a holiday destination with the bus trip to Peterborough is that the crossing of the Great Ouse feels like the beginning of the holiday, since save for WNAG committee meetings pretty much all my daily life happens east of that river.
After that the only place on the way to Peterborough that really offers photo ops is Wisbech, self styled “Capital of the Fenlands”.
Peterborough
York station
This page and others like it come from a book that was one of the purchases I made with my birthday present from my friends at WNAG
Darlington, the joint oldest passenger station in the world (the Stockton and Darlington route carried its first passengers in 1825, before when railways had been freight only).
Durham is dominated by two massive buildings, this one…
…and this one.
Newcastle is a city of bridges.
A distant shot of a tram near Newcastle.
A close crop showing only the tram and immediate surround.
This is the town served by Alnmouth station, though the station itself is a tiny bit inland from the town.
This long viaduct is in Berwick Upon Tweed, and it links England and Scotland.
The Tweed will never rival the Tyne for bridges, but these are quite impressive.
Is it possible to shoot a moving target when you yourself are in motion (and at some speed)? Yes, and this is defintive proof (but successes like this are rare).
This is the clock at Edinburgh Waverley station.
This establishment (see also previous picture) is directly opposite the Market Street exit from Waverley Station.
From here on in the pictures were all taken from the back seat (non-drivers side) of my parents car.

Comrie 2024 – Wrap Up

Concluding my account of my Scottish holiday with the return journey.

This will be the final post in my series about my Scottish holiday (28-31 May inclusive. I will briefly mention the birthday festivities which took place a day early – the day itself (May 31) was to be a day of travelling home, before covering the return journey.

THE BIRTHDAY MEAL

One of the shops Comrie possesses is a butcher, and the centrepiece of the meal was three large rib eye steaks purchased from that establishment. We also had Jersey Royals and locally grown asparagus, while there were locally grown raspberries for pudding. There was sparkling wine before the meal, and still wine with it.

THE RETURN JOURNEY

I was due to leave Perth at 11:15AM on May 31st, a time which was tailored to the fact that we had to be out of the building in Comrie by 10 at the latest – it was late enough not hurry our departure and early enough that the wait at Perth station would not be too long. This train was running a Perth to Edinburgh route and stopped at a number of places. There were some fine views, although I had put myself on the less good side of the train. I was worrying at one point as it ran late, and indeed I had only eight minutes to make the connection at Edinburgh, but I was never actually in any danger of missing that connection. The train from Edinburgh to Peterborough ran smoothly, though my reserved seat was on the less good side of the train for photography. At Peterborough I had a wait of about 20 minutes for the bus to King’s Lynn. This part of the journey also ran smoothly, and I arrived at the bus station a little before 6:40PM, and was home just before 7PM.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my photographs from the return journey..,

The train for the Perth-Edinburgh leg of the journey.

Comrie 2024 – The Journey There

The public transport elements of my journey from King’s Lynn to Comrie.

This is the first of what I plan to be a series of posts about my recent holiday in Scotland. This post looks in detail at the public transport elements of the journey there.

KING’S LYNN TO PETERBOROUGH

I booked my train tickets to and from Peterborough because it is significantly cheaper that way and also the train journey to Peterborough involves a change at Ely. With the train on which I had a reserved seat leaving Peterborough at 10:18AM I assessed that the right bus to be on was the 8:30AM bus, which meant I needed to leave before 8 o’clock to be sure of catching it. This did not prove to be any great problem. The bus ran smoothly and I arrived at Peterborough with plenty of time to find the correct platform and the correct place on that platform to wait to board the train at the right point (I was in coach H, which was shown on the information screen as needing me to be in zone 5 of the platform…

PETERBOROUGH TO EDINBURGH WAVERLEY

This was the longest leg of the journey, but compensated by also being the fastest. Finding my reserved seat was straightforward, and no one had unthinkingly occupied it, so I was able to seat myself without having to ask anyone to move (even though reservations are very clearly indicated as such it is not unknown to find a reserved seat already occupied, and I will get the person occupying it to move if that is the case). I had booked a forward facing window seat, and on this occasion that was what it proved to be – and it was on the better side of the train for photography. This route provides plenty of fine views, especially between York and Edinburgh (though there a few good bits south of York as well). The task at Edinburgh was to locate the train I was to travel on as far as Stirling, which I did…

EDINBURGH TO STIRLING

This was on a stopping service which was ultimately headed for Dunblane, and passed through a few interesting places. At Stirling I had to change trains for the final leg of the journey to Perth, but this did involve moving platforms, for which I was grateful.

STIRLING TO PERTH

This was a non-stop journey on a Scotrail Intercity service heading towards Inverness. Unfortunately I was unable to secure a window seat for this final leg of the journey, though I did spot one or two interesting things on arrival at Perth. The train arrived at Perth at the scheduled time, which meant that seven and a half hours of public transport travel involving one bus and three trains had ended with the traveller in the right place at the right time – which in 21st century Britain comes close to qualifying as miraculous.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Taking photographs through the windows of buses and trains is often frustrating, but yields enough good pictures to be worthwhile….

The first 15 pictures are King’s Lynn pictures, some taken on the Monday evening, a couple while walking to the bus station on Tuesday morning.
This picture and the next two were taken while passing through Wisbech.
The train pictures start here.
Our first stop.
On the approach to Alnmouth.
The train would soon be crossing this viaduct.
Looking along the Tweed as the train moves from England into Scotland.
This is now a Radisson hotel, but it would have been built by the original railway company as the station hotel.

Lake District 2023 18: Getting Home

The final post in my series about my holiday in the Lake District, detailing the journey home.

Welcome to the final post in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. In it I talk about my journey back to King’s Lynn.

A MULTI-MODAL JOURNEY

Thursday was the only day on which I could travel home – the next non-strike day was the following Tuesday by when I was due back at work. I had been warned by thetrainline.com of trouble on the Ely-King’s Lynn portion of the journey – they had wanted to me to book a whole new journey, but I knew better – so long as I could get as far as Peterborough I could then get a bus to King’s Lynn, and there is no difference in the time taken to walk from the bus station to my home and that from the train station. Thus I was prepared for a journey using three modes of wheeled transport plus walking.

THE JOURNEY

My parents gave me a lift from Ambleside to Oxenholme the Lake District, getting me there well before my train was due. The train arrived five minutes late, which is early by Avanti’s usual standards. The train was a little crowded, but I had a reserved seat, and it was otherwise uneventful.

At Preston I had to change to another Avanti service, as the one I was on ran non-stop between Warrington and London, and my second change was at Birmingham New Street. This train was also fairly crowded.

At Birmingham New Street I boarded a service bound ultimately for Norwich. This train ran exactly according to schedule, and it turned out that I had just under a 20 minute wait at Peterborough for the bus to King’s Lynn.

ExCel proved to among the bus routes on which no single journey costs more than £2, a substantial saving on previous fares on that route (Lynx, whose buses I use to get to and from work are not as yet part of this scheme). Arriving at King’s Lynn bus station, as unappealing as that location is, was something of a relief – I knew for certain at that point that last possibility of trouble was behind me, which given the situation in which I made that journey was no small thing.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my pictures from this day…

Crossing the Great Ouse by bus, the moment I regard as the end of the holiday.
You will be seeing more of this swan family in posts to come, although the eight cygnets here have been reduced in number to six.

Lake District 2023 17: Kendal

Continuing my series about my holiday in the Lake District with an account of our visit to Kendal.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. This post deals with the last trip of the holiday, on the Wednesday, when after finishing in Coniston we got the bus to Kendal (my father decided to get out at Ambleside and return to the cottage, but my mother and I went on to Kendal).

A TWO PART BUS JOURNEY

The bus we boarded at Coniston terminated at Windermere station, so we had to change buses there, and the bus we boarded for Kendal was absolutely jam packed. I ended up standing for most of the journey , so saw less than I would have liked of the areas we passed through.

KENDAL

Kendal, on the edge of the Lake District, sits on the river Kent. Both town and river are splendid. The river, superbly clean, is home to a huge amount of bird life, as you will see from my gallery, while the town features a number of interesting buildings and some fine bridges over the river. We were only a few minutes away from missing the last bus back to Ambleside (this is a longish distance route as well, running between Lancaster and Penrith, making the 17:40 departure time of the last bus from Kendal very odd). This time I had a top deck window seat, and made up for what I had missed on the inbound journey.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here is the gallery for Kendal – to view an image at full size click on it…

A male grey wagtail almost fully into its summer plumage.

Lake District 2023 16: Coniston

Continuing my series about my holiday in the Lake District with an account of a visit to Coniston.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. This post focusses on Coniston.

ANOTHER TOPE CONNECTION

As with Hawkshead which featured in my last post Coniston is a setting for one of Rebecca Tope’s Lake District series, “The Coniston Case”.

CONISTON

A short and scenic bus ride took us on from Hawkshead to Coniston. We found a likely looking pub for my birthday lunch, discovered that we could not order food before 12:30, and decided to wait because it looked very good. I found a suitable local beer to drink. The food proved to be excellent, with just one minor quibble: I asked for my steak rare, which means it should be red in the middle, and it came closer to medium than rare.

Lunch done we set off on a walk to Coniston Water. We headed back by a slightly different route.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

This picture and the next (click to view at full size0 show the pub menu).
Many maps of various kinds caught my attention in and around Coniston.
I was pleased to spot this.

Lake District 2023 15: Hawkshead

Continuing my series about my holiday in the Lake District with an account of a visit to Hawkshead.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. We are now on to the Wednesday, my last full day in the area and my 48th birthday. The day started with a visit to Hawkshead by way of a fairly short and scenic bus journey.

BACK ON THE TOPE TRAIL

Hawkshead features in Rebecca Tope’s series of Lake District novels (“The Hawkshead Hostage”) – not the only place we visited that day to do so.

THE MOST SCENIC VILLAGE IN THE LAKE DISTRICT

This is Hawkshead’s own strapline for itself, and it may even be true (in the space of a few days I can hardly lay claim to have seen anything approaching every village in the area, so I can go no stronger than that) – it is certainly extremely scenic, and the church is very interesting. The churchyard is no longer used for burials and is now a designated nature reserve.

PHOTOGRAPHS

The gallery…

I have seen many church organs, but never one with pipes positioned like this.

Lake District 2023 14: Keswick

Continuing my series about my holiday in the Lake District with a post about our visit to Keswick.

Welcome to the latest instalment in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. Today deals with the last activity of the Tuesday – after concluding our explorations of Grasmere we went on to Keswick before returning to Ambleside.

ABOUT KESWICK

Keswick looks down on Derwentwater (although this area is called the Lake District very few of the bodies of water in question actually have lake in their title – they are either -mere, -water or water (Coniston Water and Brothers Water to name two of the latter). Those of you who think the Derwent part of Derwentwater looks familiar are probably right – you almost certainly had pencils which had Derwent stamped on their sides, and they were made here – there are graphite deposits in the area. Keswick has its place in Rebecca Tope’s Lake District series – main character Simmy Brown’s other half, who becomes her second husband during the course of the series, is an auctioneer and his auction house is in Keswick.

EXPLORING KESWICK

Grasmere to Keswick is a short and scenic bus ride, and I enjoyed it. Keswick has an old meeting hall, a pencil museum which we didn’t visit and a general museum which we looked at but opted not to visit given the price. It is also home to a splendid park in which we spent some time. A bus journey back to Ambleside, alighting at Ambleside bus station at my initial suggestion – I had figured it was close as the bus was going to get us and I was right – it is a much shorter walk than from the garden centre which would have been the next stop.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

A rather scenic cricket ground.
The significance of this sign is the top line (see also the next picture) – Ellie Threlkeld is England Women’s second choice wicket keeper at present, and this sign provides a clue to the origins of that surname.

Lake District 2023 13: Grasmere

Continuing my series about my holiday in the Lake District with a look at Grasmere.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. After Brockhole the regular mode of transport changed from boat to bus and the focus of our explorations shifted away from the immediate vicinity of Windermere. There is a very comprehensive bus service in this part of the world, and my parents car remained parked in Ambleside from our arrival on the Saturday until the Thursday morning when I was given a lift to Oxenholme The Lake District station. If I find myself staying in Ambleside again I will book to Windermere and catch a bus into Ambleside, avoiding car use altogether.

THE TOPE CONNECTION

One of the books in Rebecca Tope’s Lake District series is called “The Grasmere Grudge”, so I was interested to see the place for myself. There are more places connected with this series of books to come.

THE BUS JOURNEY

We had long wait for the bus due to epic quantities of car traffic using the road (I reckon a lot of people had had the ‘cunning’ idea of delaying travelling to the Lake District until the Tuesday after the bank holiday and that is why it was so hugely busy on that occasion – we saw fairly heavy traffic on other occasions but nothing quite like this), and the first bus was too full to admit us. The second which arrived very shortly after was very sparsely populated and we got seats in the open topped section, which made for a very enjoyable journey through a very scenic area.

GRASMERE

Grasmere is where the poet Wordsworth along with many relations was buried, and there is some good riverside walking (the river in question being the Rydal) there as well. The church at Grasmere is at least the third to have stood on that site, there having been churches there since the seventh century.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are the photographs…

Lake District 2023 11: Brockhole General

A look at Brockhole as part of my series about my holiday in the Lake District.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the Lake District. This post is the first of two about Brockhole, as I felt the exhibition about the natural history, geology and wildlife of the Lake District deserved a post to itself. Brockhole marked a switch in the focus of our explorations – it was the last of the places around Windermere that we visited, and it was our last use of the cruising boats as a mode of transport – when we had finished at Brockhole we headed for the bus stop, and that mode of transport remained our choice for the remainder of our explorations.

A NATURE RESERVE

Brockhole is a nature reserve with a former stately home housing the gift shop and the exhibition referred to in the introduction. There was much to see between the landing jetty and the house, and a bit more once we had finished in the house. If I am ever in the area again I would certainly hope to revisit this place, and see more of it than I did this time round.

PHOTOGRAPHS