I’m Stranded in Denbigh – Get Me Out of Here! A Summer Trip into North-East Wales (part one of two)
21 November 2021
ABOVE: Arriva Wales 4491 (MX61 AUR), a VDL DB300 Wright Gemini 2, is seen at Ffynnongroyw, near Holywell, working route 11/C from Rhyl to Chester, on Thursday 3rd June 2021.
Just to make it clear, I am neither stuck in Denbigh nor desperate to get out! In fact, it’s a lovely place! But for reasons that I will go into, I’m wanting to find a route out that doesn’t just reverse my route in, and doing so is proving difficult.
Rewind a few hours. It’s a cloudy Thursday morning in June. I have just travelled from my hotel in Birkenhead down to Chester on the Stagecoach X1. This is a route that seems to be such a mixture of double and single-deckers, that I cannot work out which is the official allocation. Annoyingly, mine has been a single decker.
Even more annoyingly, after sitting for five minutes at Chester Railway station for timetabling reasons before proceeding to the bus station, I have just missed the hourly 84 bus that I wanted to catch to Crewe.
I knew it was tight. And, in one of the very rare occasions where the information from Traveline has been incorrect, the 84 has not departed from stand C, as shown in the Traveline timetable, but something like L or M. (I’ve just looked at the Cheshire West and Chester Council website and it now says stand B for the 84 – maybe it’s changed since the summer.)
Doesn’t matter which stop anyway, there’s no sign of the 84 and it was due out a minute ago. It’s gone. I have (nearly) an hour to kill.
I decide to walk into the city of Chester – well worth doing, incidentally, if you’re in the region. But I don’t get further than stand F, where the 0915 service 11 to “Holywell for Rhyl” is sitting on the stand, three minutes to departure. The door is open; the front seat is free. I am being lured!
This route is on my list for later in the week, but I do indeed change my plans and jump on. I ask the driver if he is going straight through to Rhyl (“Holywell for Rhyl” would usually mean a through bus). He tells me that he is going to Holywell, where we connect for Rhyl. I take my upstairs front seat seat, none the wiser.
As I cross the border into Wales it starts drizzling, but it improves as we go and it’s a great ride through to Rhyl. (It is a through ride, although the bus becomes an 11C at Holywell). We pass through Prestatyn, where I spent a couple of holidays in the early nineties at the large Pontin’s camp. (Fun fact: Holiday on the Buses was filmed there). It is lovely to be back, especially as a few weeks earlier I wouldn’t have been allowed into Wales at all due to Covid restrictions.
The bus carries a very healthy load of holidaymakers, especially after Prestatyn, and is a few minutes late arriving at Rhyl station. I would love to thank the driver for a lovely ride, but he’s already squeezed out of the cab to hand over to his successor before I get to the door. Clearly the departure of the return journey is overdue.
There’s a number 12 to Llandudno loading. I would love to catch that (many others from my bus do), and it had been the plan. But there’s been a Covid surge reported there so I err on the side of caution.
After a quick wander around (I’m sorry, but there’s not much to commend Rhyl to me), I am back at the bus station contemplating my next move, when I spot the 51B to “Denbigh for Wrexham”. I don’t know Denbigh, but I do know that there is a bus from Wrexham that will take me back to Chester. So, with only a moment to make my decision, I go for it.
The 51B is an interesting and scenic ride, and, in transit, I am able to establish that it runs hourly, thus giving me a chance to have a break in Denbigh for lunch. I find a lovely Coffee Shop in the High Street (Ji-Binc – I recommend it) for a light lunch and return to the bus stop in good time for the next service to Wrexham.
And that’s where confusion kicks in…
To be continued…
Rewind a few hours. It’s a cloudy Thursday morning in June. I have just travelled from my hotel in Birkenhead down to Chester on the Stagecoach X1. This is a route that seems to be such a mixture of double and single-deckers, that I cannot work out which is the official allocation. Annoyingly, mine has been a single decker.
Even more annoyingly, after sitting for five minutes at Chester Railway station for timetabling reasons before proceeding to the bus station, I have just missed the hourly 84 bus that I wanted to catch to Crewe.
I knew it was tight. And, in one of the very rare occasions where the information from Traveline has been incorrect, the 84 has not departed from stand C, as shown in the Traveline timetable, but something like L or M. (I’ve just looked at the Cheshire West and Chester Council website and it now says stand B for the 84 – maybe it’s changed since the summer.)
Doesn’t matter which stop anyway, there’s no sign of the 84 and it was due out a minute ago. It’s gone. I have (nearly) an hour to kill.
I decide to walk into the city of Chester – well worth doing, incidentally, if you’re in the region. But I don’t get further than stand F, where the 0915 service 11 to “Holywell for Rhyl” is sitting on the stand, three minutes to departure. The door is open; the front seat is free. I am being lured!
This route is on my list for later in the week, but I do indeed change my plans and jump on. I ask the driver if he is going straight through to Rhyl (“Holywell for Rhyl” would usually mean a through bus). He tells me that he is going to Holywell, where we connect for Rhyl. I take my upstairs front seat seat, none the wiser.
As I cross the border into Wales it starts drizzling, but it improves as we go and it’s a great ride through to Rhyl. (It is a through ride, although the bus becomes an 11C at Holywell). We pass through Prestatyn, where I spent a couple of holidays in the early nineties at the large Pontin’s camp. (Fun fact: Holiday on the Buses was filmed there). It is lovely to be back, especially as a few weeks earlier I wouldn’t have been allowed into Wales at all due to Covid restrictions.
The bus carries a very healthy load of holidaymakers, especially after Prestatyn, and is a few minutes late arriving at Rhyl station. I would love to thank the driver for a lovely ride, but he’s already squeezed out of the cab to hand over to his successor before I get to the door. Clearly the departure of the return journey is overdue.
There’s a number 12 to Llandudno loading. I would love to catch that (many others from my bus do), and it had been the plan. But there’s been a Covid surge reported there so I err on the side of caution.
After a quick wander around (I’m sorry, but there’s not much to commend Rhyl to me), I am back at the bus station contemplating my next move, when I spot the 51B to “Denbigh for Wrexham”. I don’t know Denbigh, but I do know that there is a bus from Wrexham that will take me back to Chester. So, with only a moment to make my decision, I go for it.
The 51B is an interesting and scenic ride, and, in transit, I am able to establish that it runs hourly, thus giving me a chance to have a break in Denbigh for lunch. I find a lovely Coffee Shop in the High Street (Ji-Binc – I recommend it) for a light lunch and return to the bus stop in good time for the next service to Wrexham.
And that’s where confusion kicks in…
To be continued…
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