tl:dr - a good if slow-across-the-ground day out, if imposing it on others, I'd make considerate choices though...
Needing a public transport fix, it turned into one of those Saturday mornings where the connections fell awkwardly, but working with what was available... Bath's bus system not cooperating, so a walk to the station, just missing the 9:29 to Swindon so, on to the 9:43... which at Swindon allowed 50 minutes for a quick walk to the bus station, which is within a month or five of being closed for good, and then across the forthcoming arrangement for buses to the shops and back.
Debenham's corpse is unfortunately very visible and, with scaffolding sheets torn and slatting in any breeze, drawing attention to itself. In the fenced off space in front of it was one of those automatic security things that looks as though it's going to taser intruders (and may be capable of barking instructions at people who approach, as I found out once...)
The cafe between the bus station and what was an underpass is closed too, either for good or for a refresh.
The new bus street arrangement thing looks all very well but might impose more of a hike for people changing between train and bus - or even between bus and bus. At the station, three platform staff at platform level had been having a loud anti-passenger conversation, which wasn't ideal. I asked one of the staff staffing the barrier if the bus station was still where it was and he let me know that he was having a bad day which wasn't exactly ideal either.
On to the bus to Cirencester. For some reason, Stagecoach's buses seem to have stopped accepting Bathnes diamondcards but the driver was fine with this.
After a spell on the dual carriageway the bus serves Cricklade, and at Latton, allows a glimpse of an odd unexpected culvert beneath what is now a motorway in all but name, and the bus then threads its way through part of what's branded as the Cotswold Water Park, which is always surprising to encounter in what was until recently very much rural and somewhat remote country.
The final approach to Cirencester, the town particularly submerged in traffic, was complicated in that there had been an odd road traffic collision at the roundabout on the bypass by Waitrose. It looked to be driver of an SUV exiting the town via the grass strip in the middle rather than the road, and somehow clobbering a lamp post at speed, pulling that clean out of the ground, both car and lamp post on to the roundabout, stopping the job as it was no longer driveable, but no other vehicles apparent. Police were still there, along with a flatbed truck and ramp, and also a tech team to make the lampost supply safe.
So, a bit delayed, nevertheless the connection was ok for a bacon butty and then the several-times-a-day bus to Stroud.
Leaving the Stroud bus at Coates, at a stop that I'd last used in August 1970** time for a walk through the village and along a footpath to check if the Tunnel House pub is still there.
(It's still there but is currently not a pub. The building is ok but its surroundings are a bit building-sitey. Also, the collection of holiday huts for which I think the Bathurst estate gained planning permission hasn't happened yet).
Rather than walk across to Sapperton for the bus back to Ciren etc etc, Kemble Station was becoming a particularly attractive vision, so down into the canal's cutting and a little contemplation of the canal tunnel, the portal looking rather whiskery for the time being. Heading to Kemble would also allow me to repeat a previous walk that had been ruined by the need to care for the safety of a stray dog, something that was eventually achieved by confining it in the garden of a nearby house. As the garden also contained several geese, the improvement in safety of the dog may have been somewhat relative...
The towpath heads off conveniently in the general direction of Kemble and so did I, the clear water in the canal penned in by the stop planks at Tarlton bridge, the bed dry and thirsty thereafter. Copious snowdrops escaping from the garden in the forever roofless roundhouse there, a momento from the time that the building was an (inconvenient) home.
Eventually thrown off the canal towpath by recent barbed wire into the meadows, past the source of the Thames (or perhaps not) and later, a large pool just upstream of the Foss Way's crossing of the valley (and a nod to the location and time that I managed to wind an extinct form of MZ motorcycle up to 63 mph thereabouts...)
The site of the canal company's wind pump by Thames Head bridge is presumably now beneath the modern road, but east of the bridge, a larger pool that was generating a little flow in what for a couple of hundred yards was very much a stream bed before it petered out once again.
A pause, at least concerning anything resembling flowing water, before what is presumably something called Lyd Well took charge, filling the Thames with a copious flow. The river, very much established as a thing, heading across more meadows to pass beneath the road and Cirencester's railway's vanished bridge, at which point a convenient footpath leads to Kemble Station, where the start of the branch and small quarry has been turned over to pay-by-app car parking.
So, Kemble Station, and around 25 people for the 16:49 on a Saturday which is good to see. The bookiing office and cafe closed and who can blame them. The nearby pub open, but no time before the train. The bus from Cirencester is very infrequent and little indication as to how the people had arrived at the station as about half were not of driving age, (which is also good to see).
The return trip, straightforward. Both
IEPs▸ had the deep-vein-thrombosis-seat-defect but that risk only kicks in after 45 minutes sitting, so, not a problem. Swindon has automated stair announcements that I can't tune out, but these now make me think ' Ian Walmsley who writes for Modern Rail - what would he say?'
I'd managed to become too thirsty and the wait at Swindon was just long enough to hammer across to the convenient Queens Tap pub opposite and down a pint of lime juice and water. Then, refreshed, on to the train back to Bath, reflecting on how pleasant it is to be able to use public transport to set up a walk that doesn't involve returning to a vehicle or, even worse, a vehicle shuffle.
Mark
** or rather, hadn't used as the last bus, a bit after nine at night I think, had seen fit to run early, and we missed it, but that is another tale and for that matter, one that's probably been told here already.
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