31st July 2023
Getting from Somerset to Cornwall invariably requires passing through Devon, something I would need to do again when heading for Dorset in a few days' time. Therefore, although passing through Devon I avoided visiting the county town, heading straight from Taunton to Truro. Exeter could wait!
Taunton to Minehead
I arrived at Minehead station in good time to get a mid-afternoon bus that would take me directly to Minehead. When I had come this way on my Around the Edge of England tour a few years ago there were no buses at all along the highly scenic coastline between Minehead and Lynmouth, forcing me to take a large diversion inland via Tiverton. Now that the service had been reinstated, for the summer at least, I wanted to take the opportunity to see what I had missed, even though it was not the most direct route to take to get to Cornwall.
But the bus I planned to get was running late, so late that I assumed it had been cancelled. The queue of people waiting for it seemed to grow with every train that arrived and it became obvious that there would be much competition for seats when a bus did arrive. I therefore walked back towards the town centre to pick up the bus at an earlier stage in its journey and beat the queue. The bus I did catch turned out to be the one I'd been expecting, except that it was now nearly half-an-hour late. As I anticipated, by the time we arrived at the station there were too many people waiting for us to be able to take them all. By now, the next bus on the service was not far behind - in fact it arrived before we set off again - allowing the staff member who was accompanying what I think was a new driver to call out the time-honoured phrase "there's another one behind". Both buses then proceeded, evry well filled, in convoy to Minehead, where a large proportion of the passengers travelled through to the Butlin's Holiday Park, showing that that organisation can still attract a good custom.
My own hotel was at the other end of the sea front and about a 15 minute walk away.
1st August 2023
Minehead to Okehampton
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| The Minehead to Lynmouth bus: the first open-topper of the trip |
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| View from the top deck at the top of Countisbury Hill with Lynton in the distance |
About 20km out of Minehead, at the appropriately-named "County Gate", we left Somerset and entered Devon for the first of two visits to that county.
DEVON: County Town: Exeter
The county largely escaped the reorganisation of local government in 1974, losing only a handful of parishes to Cornwall, although the Plymouth and Torbay areas are now administered separately from the remainder of the county.
I eventually got my breakfast at a little cafe in the car park at Lynmouth, part of which also doubles as the village's bus station. Although my next bus started from here, I had the option - and the time - to continue to Lynton via the Cliff Railway. My "Around the Edge of England" tour incorporated a number of what I termed "transport curiosities" as a large number of these can be found around the coast, but I'd had to miss this one due to lack of a bus from Minehead so was pleased to be able to take it in now.
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| Lynmouth to Lynton cliff railway. |
From Lynton I picked up Filer's 310 bus to Barnstaple. After my two previous journeys this was a prosaic single decker bus, but it was a scenic route and at Woody Bay station I caught a brief glimpse of a steam-hauled train on the re-opened stretch of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, which once lined those points in the way my bus was doing today.
After a walk around Barnstaple and a visit to the recently refurbished Pannier Market I continued on Stagecoach service 71 to either "Torrington" or "Great Torrington" (maps and timetables differ). Alighting at the Parish Church terminus, I was surprised to see no sign of a town centre, just a main road heading out into the country. The town itself, as I eventually discovered, is off the main road down a rather obscure side road!
I returned to the church for my last bus of the day - a Stagecoach Optare Solo on the 317 to Okehampton. This was another long, winding, country bus route with few passengers which dropped me in the centre of Okehampton in mid-afternoon with plenty of time to find my hotel for the evening. That evening I took a trip on the recently re-opened railway line from Okehampton as far as Crediton, to see if it offered anywhere more exciting for a meal and a drink than Okehampton. It doesn't.
2nd August 2023
Okehampton to Truro
The railway that has recently re-opend to Okehampton once continued to Tavistock (and beyond) and the Dartline 318 followed the route of the railway, even being branded a "Rail Link" service. It had started at Okehampton station, which is a considerable distance from the town centre, but was empty when it arrived at the stop. The route was largely along the main road, with just a few diversions to serve villages such as North Brentor before arriving at Tavistock's bus station just in time to see a bus on to Callington, my next port of call, leave as we arrived.
This wasn't a planned connection (the buses are timed to miss by about 2 minutes) and it did give me time for a walk around the town, which is a fair step from the rather inconveniently sited bus station, before returning for the next bus to Callington. Go Cornwall's 79A was a main road variant of the 79 that serves more villages, but it did go through Gunnislake, where we crossed the Tamar and thus entered Cornwall.
CORNWALL: County Town - Truro
It is a largely agricultural county, albeit with a strong tourist industry, particularly in coastal areas. It's industrial heritage consists of the remains of tin and copper mining and the china clay industry still exists.
Callington is the home of Ginster's pasties, well-known throughout Britain but doesn't really have much else going for it. I didn't stray far from the bus stops in the town centre during my brief stay there but I did note the comprehensive timetables and real-time displays there.
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| Service 12, which despite the destination sign had already been to Launceston |
My progress west was pushed into reverse here, due to a combination of geography and bus timetables, and I was next headed south-east on Go Cornwall's service 12 to Saltash. This confused me at first when it arrived showing "Launceston for Plymouth" on the front, as Launceston was in the opposite direction to which I has heading. I soon realised, however, that the bus would have come through from Bude and that the driver had forgotten to change the sign on arrival at Launceston. (The use of "Launceston for Plymouth" and similar is a way toi get around the more restrictive Drivers' Hours Regulations that apply to longer-distance routes).
The double-decker was definitely needed on this trip, which was quite busy mainly with young people heading for Plymouth. It was, apart from the open-topper at Minehead, the first double-decker I'd used since Gloucester!
I had my first pasty of the trip for my lunch whilst waiting for the next bus at Saltash, but it wasn't one of Ginster's. Service 11 is another long-distance route from Plymouth, this time heading for Padstow with an end-to-end journey time of over two-and-a-half-hours. Foertunately, I was only going to Bodmin, just over an hour away. Highlight of the trip was a call at Bodmin Parkway railway station, which I surprised to see can only be accessed via a sharp turn off the main road into a single-track road followed by a dog-leg turn under the railway, where we almost met an oncoming car head-on, and another narrow stretch of road up to the platform level, where a car driver who didn't know the width of his own vehicle opted to reverse a significant distance rather than attempt to pass us.
Even at the station the bus has to make a complete circuit of the car park to turn round before reaching the stop!
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| Shire Hall, Bodmin |
Bodmin was once the county town of Cornwall (and before that it was Launceston) and the Shire Hall is still there. The buses stop outside it. Today, the county town is Truro and it was there that my last bus of the day would take me.
With Cornwall being a peninsula, narrowing gradually as it goes west, I knew that I would have to return through Devon and was anxious to avoid having to go and come back via the same route. I therefore chose the rather indirect 89 service from Bodmin, which I was pleased to see was another double-decker, although I can't say the views from the top deck were over-exciting.
My forty-year-old OS map made following the route quite difficult in places, such has been the extent of road building in the intervening period and I completely lost track of where we were at times. Bits of it did look familiar though as I remembered cycling to the far west of the county in 1999 to see (or not!) the solar eclipse.
The weather hadn't been too good all day and it was raining again when we arrived at Truro's well-appointed bus station where I was pleased to be able to pick up a route map and timetable book for the whole of Cornwall, something that is rarely on offer in England these days.
3rd August 20203
Truro to Exeter
From Truro, all routes east involved returning to Bodmin. Having taken the roundabout - but through - bus on service 89 yesterday I chose the more direct route via St. Austell, even though that involved a change of bus - and an hour's wait - there. First Kernow's 27 was also the route I took out of Truro on my Around the edge of England Tour in 2016 and St. Austell was as awful a place as I rfemembered it to have been, one of its few saving graces being an integrated bus and rail station, although even that is on the edge of town and steeply uphill from the centre.
My second bus of the day, service 26 on to Bodmin, also involved duplication, following part of yesterday's route. It was, luckily, a double-decker, all the better to enjoy the views of the worked-out clay pits and spoil heaps that litter the landscape hereabouts. Once again my 40 year old Ordnance Survey map was of limited use in following the route we were taking due to the extensive road building that has taken place.
Yet more duplication came next when I had to retrace my steps all the way to Saltash on Go Cornwall's service 11, although at least our call at Bodmin Parkway station was less troublesome than on the way down. This bus was also the first since Taunton to Minehead to be running significantly late (about 15 minutes) due to an emergency road closure farther back along the route. From Saltash I stayed on the 11 through to Plymouth, re-crossing the Tamar to reenter Devon via an ingenious system of road lanes that allows the bus to bypass the queues of traffic waiting to pay the toll from crossing the bridge.
Plymouth
Plymouth's city centre was rebuilt after World War II and some of the buildings are now beginning to show their age. Coupled with the presence of a couple of large closed down department stores, I didn't find it a particularly attractive place, although there was evidence of redevelopment work underway, which might improve things.
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| Armada Way |
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| George Street |
Sometimes as a bus passenger in an unfamiliar place you just have to have faith in what information you have. Two sources of online information told me that me next bus, the "Dartmoor Explorer", which would take me right over the moor to Exeter, left from Stand 8 on Royal Parade at 1525. However, having located stand 8 I found it marked as a "Coach Set Down Point" and the timetable display was blank!
But the information I had as to what the Dartmoor Explorer might do seemed logical and I put the lack of confirmatory evidence down to the fact that it is operated by a different bus company to the one that runs the majority of Plymouth's buses. In the event, the bus turned up a good ten minutes before departure time and there were several other passengers waiting, meaning that the only disappointment was that it was a single-decker, although the reason for this became apparent later in the journey and some of the roads that we traversed.
The run over Dartmoor was every bit as scenic as expected and although we didn't go past the famous prison at Princetown we did get a good view of it from the bus. The journey was one of two halves - over open moorland to Moretonhampstead, followed by narrow winding tree covered roads through to the outskirts of Exeter.
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| Dartmoor through the bus window - 1 |
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| Dartmoor through the bus window - 2 |
The Dartmoor Explorer bus is a summer seasonal service, marketed as a way for people to get out and enjoy the moor, but most of the passengers we carried on this trip seemed to have come to Devon for a day out - some all the way from Exeter - whilst others were locals, returning from shopping trips to the city. We did, however, pick up one walker on the top of the moor, who appeared to be a regular.
4th August 2023
Exeter to Dorchester
An early start from Exeter required payment of £2 for the fare to Axminster on Stagecoach service 44, the low cost being due to a government initiative that reduced most bus fares in England to a maximum of £2 in 2023.
Traffic in Axminster was heavy fo such a small place, but my connecting First Bus X51 left on time. Traffic coming the other way on the A35 was very heavy, not helped by road works, but we arrived at Bridport on time, having crossed the county boundary at Lyme Regis.
DORSET: County Town: Dorchester
Dorset is primarily an agricultural county, although tourism does feature in its economy, particularly along the "Jurassic Coast"
Its eastern boundary cuts right through the Bournemouth/Poole/Christchurch conurbation and in 1974 that whole area was transferred to the administrative county council. However, it is now a unitary authority in its own right.
The county town is Dorchester, although the most-populous settlement is Poole.
The X51's double-decker offered splendid views over the countryside and we unexpectedly approached Dorchester via Poundbury - a suburb designed for Charles Windsor (now King Charles III) and a very strange one too.
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| A view from the bus on the way in to Poundbury |
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| What appeared to be the "town centre" |
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| Flats in a building pretending to be a converted warehouse |
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| Fake industrial buildings |
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| The central bus stop, which most buses don't serve. |
Dorchester itself was much busier and offred a number of museums - including one for Dinosaurs and another for teddy bears as well as a more conventional county museum, which I might have been tempted to visit had the admission fee not been £14.
Poundbury isn't the only large-scale development around Dorchester. My hotel was in the Brewery Square complex - a commercial and residential re-development of the former Eldridge Pope Brewery, which in its day must have produced an awful lot of beer.
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| The former Eldridge Pope brewery in Dorchester |
To be continued....
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