Leeds; Tuesday, 18 January, 2011

Another early start, this time to get over to the bus station to pick up the first bus in a carefully choreographed journey (the only bus of the morning to my final destination left at 11:15 and if I didn’t catch it I would be stuck). I got the bus with plenty of time to spare and it was running fine for most of its journey until the outskirts of Harrogate where it met a particularly nasty set of roadworks.

We eventually pulled into the bus station nearly 10 minutes late, which wouldn’t have been much of a problem as the bus was due to wait there for 10 minutes before continuing onto Ripon. Unfortunately, the bus company had decided at this point they wanted to change vehicles so we all had to decamp out of the first bus and into another one, before they could start boarding the passengers waiting in Harrogate.

It didn’t take as long as I might have feared and it was only about five minutes late leaving the bus station. The problem was my connection in Ripon was only 8 minutes.

I needn’t’ have worried, firstly the bus station in Ripon is more an oversized traffic island, you can walk from one end to the other in five seconds, and secondly, I hadn’t taken into account the natural ability of a bus driver to really open up the taps on an empty stretch of road. We pulled into Ripon bang on time, if slightly bounced around.

I changed buses and made the final leg of the journey out to the World Heritage site of Fountains Abbey and Studly Royal. The Abbey was the largest Cistercian abbey in the UK and is one of the finest ruins of an abbey still standing. In the 18th century the land around was landscaped with the ruins becoming a feature of the gardens.

I had intended on spending about three hours looking around the site and catching the twenty to three bus back into Ripon to have a look around there. In the end, by the time I actually first looked at the clock it was already half two and I was two miles away from the visitors centre and bus stop, so instead enjoyed the remainder of my walk around the site, and caught the penultimate bus of the day an hour later back into Ripon.

The only downside was by the time I arrived back in Ripon it was just before four and all the museums were closing, but I did manage to get into the Cathedral in time to have a look around. I then went for a short wander around the city centre, before heading back to the bus station and starting the long journey back into Leeds.

By the time I got back into Leeds I had developed a bizarre craving for Sushi so headed over to the Yo-Sushi in Harvey Nicolas (Grim Northern Mining City to Poncy Southern Shopping City in less than 15 years!) to have my fill before heading back to the hotel to start packing.