Day one hundred and seventeen a trip to Greenwich for the No 188

I left Orpington on the 1422 to London Bridge and then caught the Jubilee line eastbound to arrive at North Greenwich interchange just before 3 PM.

London General's WHV186 awaiting departure
 at North Greenwich Interchange 

The bus now approaching

London General provides the service on route No 188 to Russell Square from North Greenwich and this time the bus was WHV186 which departed at 1501. Unlike other buses I have boarded here this bus takes a much quicker route to Greenwich rather than going around all the new housing estates and eating emporia. The route taken was along Edmund Halley Way and then left and under the A102M into Blackwall Lane. The bus runs to Greenwich and on to Deptford along the A200 most recently used when my wife and I watched the London Marathon competitors from here last April. At this point I heard some loud noise which I couldn't identify until I spied two Army Apache helicopters running up river at low level. Very quickly afterwards two Chinook helicopters were seen heading the other way.

Surrey Quays, the old dock gates.

From here the bus does some twisting and turning around the Surrey Docks, we reached Surrey Docks station at 1526 and moved into Canada Water bus station at 1533. This location was the scene of the start of the odyssey 28 months ago when I boarded the No 1 here. The bus then headed for the roundabout where the Rotherhithe Tunnel branches away and here there were a multitude of roadworks. There was similar multiplicity of roadworks from here through Bermondsey where a new cycle lane is being provided along Jamaica Road. At Shad Thames the bus turned left down Tanner Street to run parallel with the railway into London Bridge as far as Tower Bridge Road.

Six storey accommodation blocks on Jamaica Road

The Shard as viewed from Druid Street

At this point the bus turned left and away from the city to the Bricklayers Arms junction where the bus took the route to Elephant and Castle where we arrived at 1558. A little further on as we approached the Waterloo stations the bus stopped at the Old Vic and changed drivers, 1604-1607. Thereafter we ran over Waterloo Bridge, up Kingsway and into Southampton Row where the bus turned left and terminated in Russell Square at 1624.

Heading up Southampton Row with Russell Square beyond the No 68 bus ahead

The next bus starts from Marble Arch, so my initial thought was to walk there, but by the time I had reached Bond Street it was getting increasingly dark and therefore decided to walk to Victoria and took the train home where I arrived at 1830.

After arrival at Russell Square