The journey started with Charmaine and I catching the 0805 train to London Bridge and from there the Jubilee and Bakerloo lines to Paddington. There was a direct train at 0949 to Hereford but this would not arrive in Hereford until 1245, so to arrive quicker we booked the 0946 Carmarthen train and alighted at Newport. Here we took the 1137 Transport for Wales train headed for Holyhead or Caergybi. This reached Hereford rather later than the booked 1230 arrival but still prior to the arrival time of the booked direct service. We seperated outside the station and I hurried off to find Shire Hall where the bus was expected to leavae at 1300. I tried to follow my map app but the largely pedestrianised are was not represented well and I saw signposts saying city bus station which I wrongly supposed wss the right place. After asking many locals desperately I arrived at the bus stop at 1303 knowing full well if I had missed the bus then it was a two hour wait for the next one.
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| Only the No 426 stops here |
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| Another companies bus DRM on the No 476 |
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| Only four buses a day |
I hung around at the bus stop for fifteen minutes and then admitted defeat and walked back into town for some lunch. I paid some money in cheque form for church at the HSBC there and then had an orange juice and cheees croisant followed by a pain au chocolat. I had passed the country bus station which was close to the railway ststion so investigated the bus services there are ther are a number of 400s that are missing in the tfl list and it would be useful to check if they were possible substitutes. Some were some definitely were not running only once a week for example early in the morning.
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| St Peter's church |
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| Signpost I missed when initially running into town |
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| Typical black and white building of the region |
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| Kerry club with large size of decorations |
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Typical bus of the region this one
operated by Yeoman |
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| The free route Z bus called the Zipper |
After purchasing some valve oil for Richard's trumpet at the local music shop I walked back to Shire Hall and awaited the 1500 bus. This arrived back from its previous trip about 1445 and the driver went off for his break.
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| The bus having arrived from previous trip |
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| Now ready to return to Bodenham |
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| Offa House and the memorial central Hereford |
At 1458 I was aboard Yeomans YX23OYB and I then confirmed this bus trip was an out and back as some I had seen were only one way, presumably the bus then went off on a different route and if I missed the potential connection I would then miss our train home. At 1500 we took off down St Owen street and then turned left around the city centre to reach Corporation road and thereby headed back past the Country Bus station and the railway station and uphill out of the city.
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| Hereford music shop |
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| Looking NE towards the Malvern Hills |
This meant we climbed out of the Wye valley and at the top began to descend into the Lugg valley. Nearing the valley bottom we reached the A4103 which we crossed at a roundabout and then embarked on a journey of only 'c' roads.First we went under the Hereford to Worcester railway and then ran parallel with the Welsh Marches line for a while before crossing the river Lugg in a northeasterly direction and we entered Sutton St Nicholas. Here we stopped at Woodville Grove and then set off up hill dropping a few more people off as we went.
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| Marden Community Shop |
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| Losing the light near Litmarsh |
There was a sharp left turn to take us in the direction of Marden and once past the community shop there was another sharp right (OrchardGreen) and the stops here meant all but one passenger other than myself alighted. There was one road here signposted Wellington which had a sign saying road closed due flooding; there had recently been heavy rainfall in the Welsh Marches prior to Christmas. Once past Litmarsh there was quite a sharp drop and then we turned left and headed along a anrrow road which led by turning left aat a 't' junction to Bodenham primary school. At this terminal point the other passenger alighted.
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| Roads used were mostly of this size |
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| Bodenham primary school |
This was 1535 and the bus reversed and went back the way it had come to the't' junction but this time went past it and on to a settlement called Bodenham Marsh which seemed to be much more recent. After turning right at the end of this road we picked up our first passenger of the return journey. From here we got caught behind a slow moving hi liftcrane which only slowly creeped up the hill from the valley bottom. We left from the painfulness of trailing this vehicle as we went right down from very narrow roads throughVauld back to Litmarsh where we rejoined our outward route andfollowed it all the way back to Hereford which was reached precisely on time at 1615.
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| AT01 153307 of Transport for Wales at Newport |
There was now 35minutes until our trainback to Newport and we slowly met up and caught the train and then had to wait just over an hour for our booked train to Paddington. The Elizabeth train was taken from here to Farringdon and then Thameslink to Norwood Junction where we had four miuntes to wait for oiur tarin home. A tiring but ultimately successful day.
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