Day2: The Midland Heartlands

Before catching the bus let's finish the Tewkesbury photoshoot.

The flooding has apparently subsided significantly but it still looks bad to me

Saddening to walk down small side roads with doors barricaded by sandbags

And, of course, a photo of the abbey must be mandatory for every visit to Tewkesbury

Not such a great start to the day. No disasters but a catalog of small mistakes. All of our own making but part caused by annoying little usability glitches. Firstly my mistake completely. I set the GPS tracking phone as I went down for breakfast and checking it before we left I must have turned it off. Fortunately we'd only gone a few miles to village of Bredon before I realised and corrected the error. I'll manually correct it when I get home and have access to a real computer - it might be a tad tricky just using the phone

Then there was forgetting to take a picture of Liz getting on the 540 bus out of Tewkesbury. That was, in part, our uncertainty of being at the correct bus stop. It had to be correct, there was no other option but it had several bus timetables showing but no hint of the 540.

Then there was the getting on the wrong bus at Evesham. A 10 minute turnaround but we needed to dive into the local Wetherspoons for a comfort break. Several confusing factors, firstly the X18 got to the stand 9 minutes early, almost immediately after we alighted the inbound 540, so we panicked a bit before working out we actually did have time to dive into Wetherspoons. Secondly there is no bus station at Evesham, despite what timetables state; it's just stands on either side of the high street. Thirdly the bus we wanted the X18 to Coventry was timetabled to leave at 10:55, exactly the same time as the X18 which just runs around Evesham estates to Morrisons superstore. In the height of this confusion we rushed out of Wetherspoons and jumped on the Morrisons bus by mistake. No big deal, it loops around and becomes the next Coventry bus but it was annoying to lose 30 minutes just because of rushing.

Still it was nice seeing all the new-born lambs on the route to Coventry, some looked very new-born indeed.

Here's the Coventry bus -

I tried for a couple of snaps en route but the phone's shutter is too slow for a moving bus. Here's Warwick Castle just disappearing out of frame

And by the time I'd for my camera ready the bus pulled out of the stop adjacent to the lovely art deco Leamington Spa station

The bus made good time to Coventry but with the detour via Evesham Morrisons it was nearly a two and a half hour trip. Definitely needed a break at Coventry. I'll make a separate post to host my cathedral photos.

Of we thought that leg was long and slightly tedious it was nothing compared to the almost three hours on the bus to Leicester. I'm sure even the locals would agree that meandering around Nuneaton and Hinckley is hardly the most scenic part of the UK.

Traffic was horribly slow around Nuneaton, an accident perhaps, so the bus was delayed a few minutes. Despite the driver not sparing any of the horses whenever he had the open road we finally pulled into Leicester about 20 minutes late. Still all the buses has started on time and all bar the last one, caught up in traffic and then rush hour, all arrived on time. This is going surprisingly well, Although my derriere is numb after two such long bus legs. Three hours on a regular bus is a looooong time

Here's today's 84 miles.

Note: I have since manually amended the GPS track so it now does start accurately from the bus stop in Tewkesbury and reflects the correct mileage.