Just Charlotte

You may notice as you browse through this site that I like a good rant from time to time. This said, I’m not completely averse to praising those happy few who manage to bring a smile to my face. I met one such individual last weekend when I decided to venture away from Leeds city centre to the “countryside” for the day.

I took the train to Harrogate and made my way by bus to a quaint little village with such a charming name that it seemed rather strange to me that there were real human beings milling around rather than Noddy and Big Ears driving up the street in their red and yellow car with Postman Pat merrily walking on by.

Anyway, I joined up with another bus which I hoped would take me to nearby Brimham Rocks. It was at this point that I was greeted by a lovely local bus driver (LLBD) who very much made my day. The bus was due to leave but I had forgotten to take cash out before my trip and had no money to pay with. I dashed to a nearby cash machine before being informed by LLBD, who had waited until I came back to depart, that he would have put me through as an OAP if he knew I was short of change.

After transporting me to Brimham Rocks and showing me a secret way to enter which would avoid paying the National Trust half my annual salary, he decided to disregard the conventional bus timetable/fare structure by offering to take me to a local gorge after spending some time at the rocks.

As promised, he picked me up at precisely the time we had agreed upon and drove promptly to the gorge. My experience at said gorge was made slightly less enjoyable after I became trapped in a pitch black cave when my hired torch decided to give up the ghost (believe me, trying to navigate your way out a wet cave complete with bats and potholes isn’t that much of a laugh) but LLBD more than made up for that slight misfortune when he drove me all the way back to Harrogate with no further charge.

My love of public transport was slightly soured when, on the train back to Leeds, a small child decided it was great fun to kick the back of my seat for a solid half hour but, nevertheless, I’ll go out of my way to choose The Dales Bus in the future.