I looked at my map of places that I’d visited using my free bus pass and noticed a bit of a gap around Ashbourne in Derbyshire. I checked on Travel line and discovered that I could make it there and back in a day (leaving after half nine, of course).
I followed the somewhat familiar route to Erdington, Sutton Coldfield and Lichfield from where I caught the X12 to Burton before getting the X38 to Derby.
The final bus to Ashbourne would depart from Stand 2 of Derby’s bus station, which is where I waited.
A bus pulled on to the stand but the driver motioned that no-one could board. Ten minutes later, the waiting throng was told that the bus was faulty and wouldn’t be going out.
This is the second bus, in as many weeks, to have broken down on me. I had to rethink my plans. If I’d have gotten the broken bus, I would have an hour in Ashbourne which would be long enough to find a few Adventure Lab caches and perhaps buy myself a bag of chips from the Market Chippy. The next outgoing bus would be in a further twenty minutes which would cut my hour in half. I could still have had an hour but I didn’t want to be too late home (eta was 19:00).
Eventually, another Ashbourne bound omnibus arrived and on I got -hopefully I could rush around and find five AdLabs in thirty minutes.
We pulled into Ashbourne around 14:15 and the next bus back would be 14:46 so I’d better get a wriggle on !
The AdLabs were easy to answer (once I’d found them) but the one at St. Johns church did involve a hike up the hill on the Buxton Road.
I found the last cache (Madge House – home of a school founded by Darwin’s aunts, I think) before grabbing a quick photo-op to prove that I’d been there. Just over five minutes until the bus !
I hot-footed it to what Ashbourne calls their bus station, grabbed a photo of the bus shelters (THAT is the bus station) and arrived at the stop about ten seconds before the bus.
The bus was the same vehicle as I arrived on and we were soon on our way back to Derby. Even with various road works, we made it back on time (being half term may have helped). From Derby, it was the X38 back to Burton where we passed the X12 back to Lichfield before coming to a halt at our stop. I rushed back just in time to see the X12 pull out. Damn. A half hour wait.
Thirty minutes behind schedule, we left Burton and, again thanks to lighter than usual traffic because of half term) arrived back in Lichfield about ten minutes before the returning X3 was due. I have caught a bus from Lichfield around five o’clock before and it is invariably late – today was a welcome exception.
Nearing Birmingham, I came back a slightly different way to that which I took going out so many hours earlier – namely the 28 and , finally, the good ol’ 94.
Eleven different buses today and another ‘pin’ in my map (the one with the white circle around it).
I spoke to Sue as I approached home to take her order for the chippy (as I didn’t have time in Ashbourne).
kevbaldry