Mystery Weekend Destination Was Eastbourne
My wife Anne and I had a smashing weekend recently when we went as passengers on a Mystery Weekend run by Woods Coaches of Leicester.
We are both very busy in different ways, so we do not have much time together. We have not had what most people would call a holiday since 1985, when we had a week in St. Ives (Cornwall) with our two oldest children Neil and Gillian, who were both little then, while Kevin and Robin were some way off being born. It was then some years since we had taken a holiday together.
What we have increasingly managed over the last couple of years have been a few breaks of two or even three days duration, and very nice that has been.
Woods Coaches are a very good company of course, with very good experienced drivers - they are so good that I hire coaches from them for my own excursions.
Well, on the Mystery Weekend we departed from St. Margarets Bus Station quite early on the Saturday morning, with not the faintest idea of whither we were heading.
Heading down the M1 and taking the road that runs past Silverstone, we made a stop at Oxford Services and then after a spell on the M25 took the Brighton road, stopping again at Pease Pottage Services.
By this time it was evident that we were aiming for the South coast, and having caught sight of the Long Man of Wilmington we arrived at the elegant resort of Eastbourne.
We spent the night at the York House Hotel, right on the sea front. This was a good comfortable hotel, and very convenient indeed for walks along the front, of which of course we avavailed ourselves.
In the morning, after an excellent breakfast and having strolled along the fairly short but excellent Eastbourne Pier, we caught the open top bus to Beachy Head, an exhilarating experience.
After walking about on the cliff top, we walked to the Countryside Centre for a cup of coffee. We were amazed to find, on a very pleasant Sunday morning just before 11am, that the cafe was still not open. It was still not open when we got back on the bus to return to Eastbourne around twenty minutes later.
While we and a number of other people were waiting around hopefully, two coaches gave up and went somewhere else, and we are pretty sure that the Shearings coach which we saw in the distance had done the same. That`s an awful lot of potential takings to be not bothered with!
Anyway, back we went into the town centre and had a look around the shops and the sea front again (having found a cup of coffee, of course), before boarding the coach again for the return journey.
This time we were taken through the Weald of Kent and had an excellent hour at Tunbridge Wells, where a stage in the busy pedestrian area known as The Pantiles featured a number of local musical acts. Great stuff.
Then we came back to Leicester, having thoroughly enjoyed a first class weekend.
Posted by colin on Thursday 6th May, 2010 at 8:38am