Swindon to Kenilworth | England by bus

Day Two

Swindon to Kenilworth

Swindon

The bus I was intending to take out of Swindon appears to have disappeared from the website. Instead, I will have to catch an earlier bus, get off at Faringdon, and then get back on the same bus again. Which makes absolutely no sense to me.

So instead of getting my breakfast in town, I opted for the hotel's option. It wasn't very good.

After that, I packed, then walked into Swindon. Along the way, I walked through a park and saw a monument dedicated to the Mother Tongue. The explanation showed the languages spoken in the town. There were the usual suspects - Urdu, Arabic, French, Italian, and Polish. But also Russian, Ukrainian Chinese, Turkish, Romanian, and Portuguese (amongst those I recognised), and several which I really didn't.

I arrived at the bus stop, and a bus I'd found the day before was waiting for me. I boarded, but when I checked the website, even this bus did not exist. And the whole thing about having to get off at Faringdon and then re-board was also just nonsense.

S6 from Swindon to Oxford

As the bus pulled out from the stop and joined the traffic along Fleming Way, I noticed that many people paint murals on the walls of their house, it seems. Maybe this is a Southwest thing - you see the same thing in Bournemouth, and Bristol is really famous for it.

And then we got to the Magic Roundabout. This is a system of controlling traffic flow involving one large roundabout in the middle, and five smaller ones outside. It has baffled people for decades.

As soon as you leave Swindon, you are already in Oxfordshire. Whilst the bus took more important and wider roads than those I'd travelled on in Wiltshire, the countryside looked similar. Drab fields, broken up with the occasional copse, with towns and villages providing the only greenery in this bleak landscape.

Oxford

I'd originally intended to catch the 10:06 bus, but now found myself on the 9:06 instead. This meant that I'd be arriving in Oxford earlier than anticipated.

Now, Oxford might be the city of dreaming spires, and if you've ever seen a picture of the Radcliffe Camera, that would surely be the obvious place to visit in this city.

But, above all, I've always wanted to see the Headington Shark. I reckoned I could get there and back in time for my next bus. And so I started the trek, knowing I'd take in some of the more orthodox sights along the way.

So I did get to see the Radcliffe Camera, and Magdalen College, and the old prison.

Headington Hill Park is a very pleasant distraction from the noise of the main road indeed - a mix of wooded areas and bare grassland, manicured, and allowed to grow to its own devices. I walked through it, and then realised once I got to the other end that I was lost.

But at last I found New High Street, and started walking up the hill to the famous house.

The detail is impressive - the artist, John Buckley, has created the illusion that the shark crashing into the roof of his friend's property has actually damaged the original tiling.

Even with taking the bus back into the city centre, I missed my onward connection. In the covered market, I found an Ethiopian cafe and decided to take my lunch there - I've always wanted to try Ethiopian food! It did not disappoint.

S3 from Oxford to Chipping Norton

I waited for the 13:01 from Oxford to Chipping Norton. I knew that would mean an hour's wait in a town whose, according to Google Maps, only attraction is a 1960s water tower. But the journey planning website had already been wrong once today. There was the off-chance it would be wrong again.

The bus didn't arrive, and several of the other passengers were starting to grumble. I decided to wait about fifteen minutes before walking back into the centre to catch the next iteration from another stop.

Just as I was about to get moving, the bus turned into the station. At the next stop, I heard a boarding passenger complaining that the bus was late. Her husband told her to be quiet. "He needs to get moving."

Leaving Oxford, the theme of yellow and brown fields continued, only now, somehow the colours seemed more vibrant. Up until now, the landscape had been quite flat. Sure, there'd been some hills, but small ones with a gentle gradient.

But as we approached Chippy (as the locals call it), we entered a whole new landscape with rolling hills, and steep slopes.

Chipping Norton

Actually, there wasn't an earlier bus to what the app showed. I really would have to wait a whole hour in this town.

But coming into the town, you realise what a wonderful setting Chipping Norton is in. All around are hills and valleys, farmer's fields, and copses. It really is a beautiful landscape.

I climbed back to the top of the hill to take all that in one more time, before returning to the bus stop, where I still had thirty minutes to wait.

50 from Chipping Norton to Stratford-upon-Avon

It turned out that I'd made the right choice to take the earlier bus. The bus to Stratford came and left with no sign of the bus I'd have been on if I'd spent that extra hour in Oxford.

Other than that, it was an uneventful journey. I think I was asleep for most of it.

Stratford-upon-Avon

The last time I was here was on a school trip when I was about 13 years old. So, yes, I have been inside Shakespeare's birthplace, and I have seen Anne Hathaway's cottage.

But it's not every day you find yourself here with an hour and half to kill. I guess I didn't really use the time very productively, though. I walked to the house where the Bard was born, took a couple of pictures, and then went to a pub to rest my feet.

Actually, I was planning to come here on my trip. I just accidentally booked a hotel in Kenilworth, a few miles down the road instead. Oh well, maybe next time...

X18 from Stratford-upon-Avon to Chesford Crossroads

I asked the driver to give me a shout at Chesford Crossroads. He told me he wouldn't be going that far, but he'd ask the replacement driver.

At Royal Leamington Spa, the new driver walked on. After talking the first driver, he poked his nose up the stairs and asked, "Is anyone going to Chesford?"

I put my hand up, assuming that meant the first driver had told him about my situation, and he'd stop and shout out the stop.

Between Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, and Leamington, there really is not much countryside. And then there's a short stretch of road to Chesford Crossroads.

After which, a passenger behind me very helpfully pointed out that I'd missed my stop, and now the bus would continue on to Coventry.

Luckily, the driver agreed to turn round and drop me off before turning onto the motorway. From here, it was just another 40-minute walk to the hotel. This had been the most gruelling day of the trip!

Kenilworth

I'm from Luton, and our local stadium used to be located on Kenilworth Road. It was a proper old-school stadium - the entrance went under someone's living room!

I hadn't actually known that Kenilworth was a town until I accidentally booked a (non-refundable) hotel there, ooh, about three weeks before I found myself there.

So now I was really in a place I'd never have gone to without this road trip!

It's about a two mile walk from Chesford Crossroads to my hotel. The high street boasts a reasonable array of different cuisines including the usual suspects, and a couple of others.

At the top of the high street, I turned into the park, and on the other side, I could hear loud music. There was some kind of festival going on.

Normally, I'd have joined in. But I was very tired after this leg of the trip.

Now I just have two more buses into Birmingham, and a short hop on the coach to Manchester.