Public Transport as a Public Service

Being a Londoner I am pretty used to crowded public transport, even on a Sunday.

I know that once you get out of London the frequency and coverage of public transport is hit and miss, given that a lot of it has to be done for a profit, and if the local council doesn’t support it, it doesn’t run.

However, I was pleasantly surprised as to how easy it was to get from Berwick to Warkworth on a Sunday, quick connections and a service every two hours.

I was even more surprised by how empty the buses were. On the first leg of the journey to Alnwick I was the only person on the bus for virtually the whole way, and from Alnwick onto Warkworth there were only a handful of other people.

Virtually the same back, less than half a dozen people on the bus from Warkworth and only me and one other person for most of the way from Alnwick to Berwick.

Whilst the tickets may have been quite expensive (only just the right side of £10 in total), it still couldn’t possibly have paid for the trip, and if I hadn’t been out today one of the legs would have had nobody on it.

So a thank-you.

To the people of Northumberland, thanks for subsidising my journey today. Your council taxes enabled me to go and visit a castle that I couldn’t have otherwise reached.

Berwick’s Scottish Roots show

There is a thing that the English are not good at, and that’s celebrating feast and special days. Yes there is Christmas, but ask most English people what day St Georges Day is, or when Shakespeare’s Birthday is and you will probably be greeted with a blank expression.

It’s not something that our neighbours to the North have any problems with. Hogmanay, St Andrews Day, Burns Night, all are important days in the Scottish calendar.

Sadly, for me, Burns Night turns out to be January 25th and this being a Sunday, it would appear that a lot of people have decided to make a weekend of it. So when I went over to Holy Island I wasn’t expecting virtually everything to be closed, including the Information Centre (open 7 days a week all year round, closed for Christmas and Burns!) and the local shop.

Whilst the Island and Berwick may be within England, they have changed hands on numerous occasions and it was becoming increasingly evident that when it comes to having a knees up, the area knows which side of the border it wants to be.

This was confirmed in the evening as the hotel was busy with people staying for the night as they were going to Buns night celebrations in Berwick.

Perhaps in future, when I go away, I should really make a note to check what festivals are on.

When Google maps go bad

Prior to heading up to Berwick I had checked online to see where the hotel was, using Google maps.

The hotel, I knew, was on the outskirts of town, next to the large supermarket. And according to the map I looked at it was there, just the other side of the road from the Supermarket.

Now, technically, I should have double checked on the Travelodge website, or perhaps looked up the postcode before taking this for certain, but I was in a hurry, and it looked easy to find.

Come 7pm I walk past the supermarket and start looking for the hotel. Only there are a couple of problems. The first one being that the road it’s the other side of is the A1, the main North South road linking Edinburgh to London, and whilst nowhere near as busy as the four lane monstrosity that carves through North London, it was still two lanes wide, and quite fast.

Eventually, I managed to cross over, nearly killing myself in the process, walked to where the hotel should have been and found that instead it was a pub.

By now I was getting quite concerned. It was very dark, no lights except for the headlamps of oncoming vehicles, and a few stars. I started to retrace my steps heading back towards the supermarket, deciding that I would go to the supermarket and check there if they knew where the hotel was.

Then, as I was approaching the entrance to the supermarket I saw it, the hotel, clearly signed, sitting at the back of the supermarket car park, and when I later checked online, the location given by the third and fourth placed results.

Something makes me think that someone has a sick sense of humour and enjoys sending people to their deaths on the A1, that or its a cautionary warning not to take everything you see online as the truth!