A Bus Journey Through Britain

DAY 1 Land's End - Truro First      1a        Land’s End       10:35 – Penzance 11:32 First       2         Penzance         11:45 – Helston 12:37 First      33        Helston 13:40 – The Lizard 14:37 First      33       The Lizard 15:26 – Helston 16:23 First      82        Helston 16:35 – Truro 17:36 DAY 2 Truro - Plymouth Western Greyhound     585      Truro 09:30 – Newquay 10:25 Western Greyhound     556      Newquay11:05 - Padstow 12:23 Western Greyhound     555      Padstow 13:30 – Bodmin Stn 14:13 Western Greyhound     593      Bodmin Stn 14:51 – Liskeard 15:22 Western Greyhound     592      Liskeard 15:35– Plymout...

As End to End journeys go, my own was hardly what you'd call direct. But then that was never the point. My primary aim was to discover if it really was possible to hop from one local bus service onto the other all the way from one remote end of Britain to the other. And... well, I’ve established that actually it is possible. So - job done.  Mind you, I certainly haven't broken any records. The shortest distance from Land's End to John O'Groats by road is reckoned to be around 838 miles, depending on how you calculate it. Some people clearly a lot hardier than I have cycled it in less than 48 hours. The record for running it on foot is nine days. Just let that sink in for a minute... My own journey totalled 1,876 miles, give or take, which I completed over a period of 28 days, so I seem to have found an extra 1,000 miles from somewhere. But even then that's eight days longer than the record for completing it on a skateboard, for goodness sake.  Day 1 ...

Inverness to John O'Groats I confess I am not entirely at ease with travelling on a Sunday.  Some years ago, I divided my time between Surrey and Tyneside and made regular week-end journeys between the two. I also spent three years away at university, again travelling to and from home - and my girlfriend in Birmingham - by train and usually at week-ends. Remembering those journeys, especially the return trips on the Sundays, immediately conjures up images of lengthy delays due to engineering works, tiresome re-routes along slow and little-used tracks via obscure former mining villages, and interminable unannounced halts in the middle of nowhere. It's a prejudice I carry to this day. As a result, I tend to the opinion that Sundays should be reserved for simple, blameless activities like going to church or stamp collecting, and travel should be avoided at all costs. This is not always possible, however – witness today's long journey northwards to John O...