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TRAVEL|WRITING|CREATIVE WRITING
A Bus-hopping Adventure in Londontown
What happens when I decide to leave my bicycle behind and climb on board of a double-decker instead?
For a long time I had the idea of hopping on a bus at the start of its journey and getting off at the end of it. Then, catch another bus beginning its voyage at the same depot and stay on it until it wound up in another part of London. Recently I got my wish.
My adventure kicked off in Edmonton Green, Enfield, north London, on board of the 149, London Bridge-bound. By the time I alighted at Hammersmith Bus Station, I’d taken four buses, three of which end-to-end, and gone east, south, southeast, southwest, and west. I’d travelled from N9 to W6 in little more than six hours.
Just like I’d done with my multiple city-wide, cycle-powered journeys before, the purpose of my enterprise was to get to know my adopted home better. Almost 30 years in the Big Smoke and I never tire of it, even if it’s no longer the “half-unquench’d volcano”, that Byron describes in his Arriving in London.
I got on the 149 with the school run hitting peak time. I chose to sit on the upper deck (in fact, that was my watchtower on every bus I took). Lower Edmonton, Tottenham, Stamford Hill…