words by Williams

To the ladies and gentlemen of the rural bus driving community… We salute you. May your back wheels never bump the kerb on a tight left-hander.

We’ve just come back from the first big trip of the year - and made it home just in time as it happens after two days of continuous snow up here on Ostrich Island. We visited two sites new to us, the Broadway CAMC site in the Cotswolds and Morris Leisure’s recently acquired Poston Mill site at Peterchurch between Hereford and Hay-on-Wye.

We took the Line 1 to Stratford-upon-Avon and back for a bit of culture, kind of. It was bloody freezing, so after a cheap ‘Spoons breakfast and a bit of a wander it was back on the bus to. Broadway.

The Line 1 route is remarkable in that it takes you through three counties in the space of about 20 miles, mainly by roads not much wider than the cart tracks they probably were in the first place. It seems that the more difficult a place is to get to (I’m thinking Lower Quinton and round the back of Chipping Camden) the more of a buzz the bussies get out of it.

The T14 service from Hereford to Hay and beyond is equally as exciting and, if anything, even more restricted width-wise in places in a gung-ho, close-your-eyes, yee-ha! kind of way.

Neither Broadway nor Poston Mill - we'll be back, for sure - advertise the bus rides as a thrill-a-minutue attraction, but it can only be a matter of time.