In London, planning a bus journey that involves connections is, for the most part, very easy. Buses run very frequently, and there are lots of them, heading in every direction. so, all you do is go out to the nearest bus stop and wait. You might plan your route, but you probably wouldn't think too much about timings. And, even if you are aiming to be at a certain place at a certain time, the Transport for London website is very good at that.
When planning trips, I am known to struggle with choice. So many options, so hard to choose. Luckily, or not, as the case may be, there aren't many choices as to where one might go from Creeting St Peter on a Saturday morning. In fact, in terms of scheduled bus services, there aren't any. Ever. Which makes the whole choice thing rather easier, I guess. I can get to Stowmarket, using the Suffolk Links Demand Responsive Transport service, however - I use it to get to the station every day as part of my commute.
So, where can you go from Stowmarket by bus?
So, it's Diss, Bury St Edmunds, Hadleigh or Ipswich (note the lack of buses in an eastwards direction). Unfortunately, the Hadleigh services amount to one bus a day, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays only. There is a bus to Diss, except that it leaves Stowmarket at 7.55 a.m. And, it's the only one.
That leaves Ipswich, where I work, and Bury St Edmunds, which is a good jumping off point for West Suffolk. The service to Ipswich, via Needham Market, is half-hourly - it's a main artery and serves some decently-sized communities. Alternatively, there is a roughly hourly service to Bury St Edmunds, but I rode the route via Woolpit earlier in the summer.
There is no alternative, I'll have to take a train to Diss and connect with a bus from there to Bury St Edmunds. Route 304, sponsored by the County Council, leaves Diss at 10.30 a.m., arriving at the bus station in Bury St Edmunds at 11.48 a.m., and travels through a part of Mid Suffolk that I don't know well - Botesdale and Rickinghall, to name but two villages.
So, where from Bury St Edmunds? Sudbury is pretty, but from there, your only real options are Colchester and Ipswich, and Thetford is a bit grim. That leaves Cambridge, Haverhill, Mildenhall and Newmarket. It's a long connect (forty-two minutes) for Mildenhall, which rules that out. The Cambridge bus passes through Newmarket, but Haverhill sounds interesting. The connection isn't perfect (twenty-seven minutes) but that gives me the time to pick up a snack and something to drink, so Haverhill it is.
At Haverhill, there is a bus to Saffron Walden, which is, apparently, pretty (I've never been there). The connection is apparently immediate, which doesn't leave a lot of room for error but, if all else fails, there are regular buses to Cambridge. Cambridgeshire is relatively easy, as Stagecoach dominate the cross-country services that radiate from Cambridge. So, Saffron Walden to Cambridge, Cambridge to Ely it is.
By the time I get to Ely (she'll be waiting), it will be getting late, so time to turn for home. There is a train, but there is also a bus from Ely to Newmarket, from where I can catch the hourly train service back to Stowmarket, as buses tend to stop running after 6 p.m. So, why not?
So, two trains, six buses and a Suffolk Links service in a lop-sided figure of eight taking in four counties in less than ten . What could possibly go wrong?
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