Travelling mainly on Fridays, I have managed to travel to quite a few places using only my older persons’ bus pass, as can be seen on the map.
Looking at the map, last Thursday, and wanting somewhere new to visit (and fill in a gap) I devised a trip out to Loughborough. An odd name in that the two halves, as it were, lough and borough, ending identically should, in theory rhyme. This would give either Low Borrow or Luff Bruff. I prefer the latter.
My first ride was the X12 to Birmingham International from where I transferred to the X1 which took me to Coventry.
I had a twenty-odd minute wait for my connection.
At the allotted time, the X6 pulled onto stand A. I have travelled on this service before but I had forgotten that the bus is actually a coach. Not a coach service (on which I wouldn’t be able to use my pass) but a coach used on a bus service.
I managed to bag the plush, comfy seat behind the driver and settled down for the hour and a half trip to Leicester.
We, slowly, made our way out of Coventry before joining the M69 motorway where the driver put the pedal to the metal, for a short while until exiting for Hinkley.
It took a while to navigate through Hinkley before rejoining the motorway. At the end, we pulled into the Fosse Shopping Park – one of the biggest out of town centres in the country.
At the bus stop, guy, sporting an Arriva uniform climbed on board. Being at the front, I soon learnt that this fellow would be taking over the bus at Leicester.
With everyone aboard, the driver pressed the button to close the door and nothing happened. Driver 2 suggested that the door may be caught on the high curb at the stop so driver 1 pulled the bus forward a few feet. There was a bit of a graunching noise – not usually a good sign. The door was tried again. It almost closed but didn’t lock into place. The two drives umm-ed and ahh-ed, pulled and push and finally got the door secure.
We continued towards the city centre but after another stop, where they couldn’t get the door open and alighting passenger had to use the side door to get off, driver 1 made an announcement that he would be going directly to the bus station. The two drivers were hoping that Mario, the engineer, could fix the door on arrival.
We pulled into the bus station and alighted via the stairs and door in the centre of the coach. With the time spent messing with the door, I missed my connection to Loughborough but luckily it was a frequent service so I only had to wait about ten minutes.
The Sky Link bus left from Stand SD and would call at Loughborough on the way to Derby via East Midlands Airport – the full trip taking one hundred and ten minutes. Luckily LuffBruff was only half an hour away.
As the journey unfolded, the weather deteriorated and on the outskirts of my destination was proper hammering down. I hatched a Plan B which was to stay on the bus to Derby then make my was home via Burton and Lichfield.
However, as the bus was nearing the centre, the rain stopped and I decided to revert to Plan A and grab a few Adventure Labs. If the weather turned again, I wouldn’t have to wait long for another bus to either Derby or back the way I’d come.
Walking back to catch a bus, I spied this impressive building (at least it was to me) so had to grab a shot.
As time was getting on, and so was the rain, I chose to backtrack so caught another Sky Link back to Leicester where I was my X6 back to Coventry leave as we pulled in. Damn !
With half an hour until the next, I fired up the AdLab app and found a site a few minutes walk away.
However at ground zero, I couldn’t locate the required answer so returned to the bus station.
However, I did pass another unusual building which took me a few seconds to decode the name on the front. Social Climbing ? As I neared, I could see that it was a climbing wall behind plate glass windows.
I arrived with minutes to spare and climbed onto another posh A6 (with fully functioning door) for a leisurely ride back to Coventry.
Just before the bus station in Cov. one of the university buildings is named Delia Derbyshire.
Delia Ann Derbyshire (5 May 1937 – 3 July 2001) was an English musician and composer of electronic music. She worked with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, including an electronic arrangement of the theme music to the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who. She has been referred to as “the unsung heroine of British electronic music”, having influenced musicians including Aphex Twin, the Chemical Brothers and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital.
From Pool Meadow, it was the X1 back to International then a 97A (the A stands for airport as the normal 97 doesn’t come out his far – only in the evenings) and finally the good ol’ 94.
In conclusion, it was a wet day, spent mainly on a bus or in a bus station with a half hour of dryish geocaching. And a gap filled in on my map.