Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus No.91

The No.91 is a summer special that runs for a month or two over the summer months so you have to be on the ball to catch it. The advantage of catching it however is that it’s a pretty fast way to get to Penarth pier. It heads out of the bus station a different way to the other Penarth buses, over to Callaghan Square and you are on Penarth Road before you know it. It is the only Cardiff bus to go through Penarth town and then down the hill to the seafront, terminating at the pier after a 25 minute journey.

I strolled along the pebbly beach practicing trying to stay upright. To think that I used to walk miles of this terrain when I walked the coast. Not now. But the sound of the waves is still special.

My book for the day was Flat Holm Island by Bob Jory and Friends. A good book to read sat on a bench on the pier looking ut to Flat Holm Island. I went there a few years ago on one of those bumpy ribs – speedy but not relaxing. There’s a lot of history associated with the island; a cholera hospital, wartime armaments, a lighthouse, a pub (well that’s a bit of an exaggeration – a hatch selling bottled beer) and dive bombing noisy seagulls.

Things on Penarth Pier were a lot more sedate. Memories of being brought here by my grandparents probably 60 years ago. I’m sure the gaps between the wooden planks on the pier were wider then.

We had coffee from one of the kiosks on the pier and sat in the shade. A lovely way to spend a summer morning. Margaret nudged me and told me there was a Welsh actress sitting next to us. I’ve always been a bit sceptical of her celebrity spotting claims after she came home and said she’s just Gareth Bale in M&S, only because he tuned out playing for Real Madrid the next day.

That’s what you get when you agree to pay a signwriter per letter.

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Bus-Book-Beverage: Cardiff Bus No.93

The No.93 is a bus to Barry – the long way round, It goes via Penarth and Dinas Powys. So if you are in a hurry you may want to look at alternative routes but if not then climb aboard and enjoy the journey.

The No.93 drops you at Morrisons. I nipped in for a comfort break and was stopped on the way out by a young man asking me if I paid for my electricity and gas? No, I tap into my neighbours supply for free. From there I chose to walk to Jackson’s Bay, a nearby sandy cove. The walking route took me past Barry Docks and up onto Barry Island before dropping down into Jackson’s Bay. It was once called Breakwater Cove and is named after Sir John Jackson who built the harbour between the breakwater and the dock entrance.

I had a stroll across the sands, saw a dog throw up and was stopped by a man who had picked up a bit of broken bottle. I told him to give me a minute, I’ll solve world starvation, all wars and global warming and get back to him later this afternoon with a way of solving the litter problem. What is it about Barry! Just leave me alone.

I visited the Knotty Yachty Beach Café and had a read of my book Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi. I picked it up at a book exchange having read on the cover that the mysteries had a mathematical element to them. That’s stretching it but it is a reasonable book with novel ideas.

I stopped off at the ruins of St Baruc’s Chapel.St Baruc was a follower and student of St Cadoc of Llancarfan and according to legend, Cadoc and other religious men went on a retreat to Flat Holm Cadoc realised that they had left his religious handbook behind. Cadoc sent Baruc and Gweldes back to Flat Holm to retrieve it. When they were returning their boat capsized and they were drowned. This tragedy did not seem to have upset Cadoc too much as he sent his men out fishing for his supper. They caught or found a gigantic salmon which, when opened up, was found to contain the book completely undamaged. A miracle! Baruc became a saint and his grave a place of pilgrimage. It is said that four pilgrimages to Barry Island were equal to one to Rome, but if you ever visit don’t forget to pay for your electricity and don’t drop any litter.

Top marks to Driver 6413 on the ride back to Cardiff, a very smooth drive and they dealt with some demanding situations very well indeed.

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Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus 92b

The 92b is another unusual Cardiff Bus. It goes from Cardiff Bus Interchange out to Penarth Cemetery. The outward journey takes place just four times in the early morning and the return journey twice in the afternoon. That means if you want to do the whole route on the same day you need to spend six hours in the cemetery. I do enjoy a wander around a cemetery but not for six hours so my 92b experience would have to be spread over a couple of days. The 92b is sporting the new orange and pink livery which reminds me of those little ‘four for a penny’ sweets we used to get in my youth.

The difference between the 92 and the 92b is that the later takes in Bessemer Road which is jam packed full of small industrial units ranging from companies selling windows, paints, radios to embroidery. Many years ago I think I recall there being a market down here. We rejoin Penarth Road and go past the Post Office sorting office and over the River Ely. The presence of the nearby dogs home is evidenced by people out doing some volunteer dog walking.

After travelling through Penarth and out the other side we arrive at the cemetery. I do like the brick chapel and town-hall like clock outside. I am less convinced by the presence of a defibrillator outside the entrance. Someone with a dark sense of humour arranged for that to be put there.

Penarth Cemetery Entrance and Defibrilator

I head down to the cliff top where impressionist artist Alfred Sisley once visited and painted a few pieces. I grabbed a coffee from Willmore’s and luckily found the only bench with some shade on the cliff path under a tree. I read my book ‘Men are from Mars and Women from Venus’ in the hope of understanding why men like catching buses in numerical order and women don’t. It didn’t tell me.

Early on in our marriage we both read a similar book that explained that when a woman offloads she isn’t expecting you to solve the problem more just to listen. That was a complete revelation to me. More recently I’ve been told that my advice can be welcome and appreciated. Now I’m left trying to gauge whether I need to be in listening mode or problem solving mode. Another 30 years of practice and I may get it right.

I head down onto the Esplanade and out onto the pier before walking up through Alexandra Gardens and into Penarth.

There was a strange happening on my return visit to catch the 92b back to Cardiff. At the bus stop outside Penarth Cemetery there was a young woman wearing a black silken mourning outfit, her face half covered in a veil and she was carrying an old fashioned lamp. A photographer turned up to take some pictures. I’ve no idea what was going on there.

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Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus Skycar

I took a break from catching the Cardiff buses in numerical order in order to take a ride on the Skycar, Cardiff’s open-top summer-only bus, my thinking being that if I left it to the end of the challenge it may be mid-winter and not running.

It starts off in the civic centre and attempts to take in everything Cardiff. There is a quick circuit of the Portland stone civic buildings, university buildings , Alexandra gardens, police stations and law courts. If you are lucky you can catch sight of a perpetrator going in to be sentenced.

Law Courtsc with City Hall and Museum behind.

We then drive past Cardiff Castle, the building we pretend is very old but Cardiffians know is more of a Victorian folly built by the Bute family. It must be said however that the ornate clock tower is lovely. If visitors had wanted to see something truly old they would have looked the other way at St John’s church tower dating back to second half of the 15th century.

As we round the corner into Westgate Street we see another place of worship, Cardiff Arms Park and the Principality Stadium. That was true until a few years ago when Welsh rugby descended into the doldrums. Always a good conversation starter if ever you meet a Welshman, ask them ‘What’s wrong with Welsh rugby?’ but make sure you have an excuse ready to stop the conversation after 45 minutes of listening.

There’s a treat in store for any bus enthusiasts next as we visit the bus station and get views not often seen from normal buses.

The next section of the journey, down to Cardiff Bay showed the changing face of Cardiff. As we go around Callaghan Square road lanes were being fenced off in preparation of the new tram lines that will be constructed from Cardiff Central down to the Bay. We pass the new Bute Street Station nearing completion and then see the cranes working on the 16,000 capacity Cardiff Bay arena.

The Skycar route seems to have changed this year. Although you still get a good view of the Millennium Centre you then are whisked off to Mermaid Quay, the less successful side of the transformation of Cardiff Bay from an architectural point of view. Previously the Skycar went down to past the Norwegian Church and offered views across Cardiff Bay and the barrage but now if you want that you have to alight and take a walk.

I stay on the bus enjoying the breeze and sunshine but the route back is pretty much the route we took there so I entertain myself by telling complete lies to the tourists on board, ‘This is the route Julius Caesar took to into town when he visited Cardiff in 36AD’, ‘Calling a Welshman Taffy is regarded as a term of affection and highly recommended’, and ‘You were lucky to catch the bus this year as next year all motor vehicles are going to be banned from Cardiff and tourists made to ride bicycles’.

After being dropped back at the museum I went over the road and got a coffee at Brodies and read some of Bill Bryson’s ‘Down Under’, still one of my favorite authors.

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Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus No.92

I’m writing this in the middle of the June 2026 heat-bomb and the highest Wales June temperature has just been smashed with 35.9^oC recorded in Bute Park in Cardiff. Last week however when I took the No.92 Cardiff Bus out to Penarth it was very different, heavy drizzly rain all day.

After arriving in the centre of Penarth I stayed onboard whilst it did its route along Stanwell Road and up around Penarth Cemetery area before returning to the town centre. The bus drivers deserve a medal for driving this route with its busy suburban streets and badly parked cars. I hopped off and quickly made the decision that this wasn’t the weather for going down to the Esplanade so instead nipped in for a Subway lunch.

Grave of Samuel Arthur Brain in Penarth with the inscription ‘IIn loving memory of Samuel Arthur Brain entered into rest Feb 19th 1903 aged 52 years. Thy will be done. Grant him O Lord eternal rest. Let perpetual light shine upon him’.

I then walked up to St Augustine’s church on the hill and found the grave of Samuel Arthur Brain. Like many Cardiff business men of the Victorian era he started life in Somerset before coming to Cardiff and starting Brains Brewery with his uncle. His name lives on with his initials being used in the name of the popular Brains S.A. I strolled up to Penarth Head Park and looked down over the seafront and pier looking very grey today.

My beverage for the day was obtained in The Pilot, a fine pint of ‘Believe in Lilt’ from the Bristol Beer Factory. This is a regular CAMRA award winning pub but the first time I have visited and well worth the ten minute walk from the main street.

I sat and read ‘Insufficiently Welsh’ by Gryf Rhys Jones. It’s another great read written presumably off the back of at TV series.

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Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus No.86

This is probably one of the longer Cardiff Bus routes. It starts at the bus station and then heads out north taking in Heath Hospital, Birchgrove, Llanishen, Lisvane and Thornhill. I got off on the return journey at the entrance to Cefn Onn Park.

Cardiff Bus No.86 – a big fail trying to get a snap of the 86 out in the wild. I kept pressing the wrong buttons. so the bus station photo is the best I got.

Cefn Onn of a beautiful sliver of hilly land donated to the City by the Prosser family. It even had its own railway station at one stage, since replaced by Lisvane and Thornhill station. The railway disappears here and heads north through a long tunnel before reappearing on the Carerphilly side. The park has some excellent trees in blossom at this time of year.

I has missed noticing that the last No.86 back to town is just gone 3 o’clock. It meant therefore that I had just two hours to get to the top of the Rhymney Valley Ridgeway, take in the air and views and scamper back down to give myself enough time for a relaxing beer in the Cottage Inn. A good workout and good pint of Wainwright Gold – a perfect afternoon.

Rhymney Valley Ridgeway looking north towards the Beacons.

My book for the day was ‘Ted – Pup Fiction’ written by the dog Ted from the Gone Fishing series with Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse which has become somewhat of the British institution over the years. Ted has sadly passed away recently but the book is a good reminder of the part he used to play in the gentle fishing series.

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Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus No.64

The theme for the day turned out to be geography. The day started with a chance meeting and entertaining chat with Cardiff poet and psychogeographer Peter Finch. His books accompany me on some of my travels. Always an entertaining read.

Cardiff Bus No.64 at terminus in Morganstown

The 64 follows a similar route to the 63 but instead of continuing up to Penryrch it takes a left and terminates on the Morganstown estate. My stroll for the day involved a bit of map reading and a clockwise circumnavigation of a large geographical feature – the Taffs Well Quarry.

The path climbs for 15 minutes and then levels out in the woods on the northern lip of the quarry. Just as you think you are not going to get any views a gap appears and a path to a viewing platform – and what a view you get from up here. The giant excavators look like miniature Dinky toys down there. Speak to many Cardiffians and they are unaware this quarry even exists let alone seen it. It’s well hidden.

The paths down northwards through Garth Woods are steep and indistinct in places but in the end I popped out onto the road. I pass the vets where we said our farewells to our faithful collie Shadow a year and a half ago. The rest of my walk passed quickly as I recalled my adventurous hikes with him.

I now had a choice of where to go for a beverage; a crowded garden centre café or the Tafern Ty Nant. You can tell by the picture which won. My book for the day was by geographer and travel writer Nicholas Crane. He retraced the steps of eight British travellers through history. He started with Gerald of Wales. An interesting historical narrative but I tell you what Finch, you knock spots off him with your prose.

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Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus No. 63

This was sure a day of highs and lows if ever there was one. Cardiff Bus No.63 goes out hourly to Pentyrch, a village to the north-west of Cardiff but still within the Cardiff county boundary. But, doh! I’ve just noticed it’s another one of those sneaky services that has a Sunday service that continues out to Creigiau in place of the No.136 which has no Sunday service. I’ll have to return and do that 96 Sunday loop.

And so, onto the high point of the day. It was glorious weather today so I headed up Garth mountain – which before all my hill climbing friends remind me, isn’t a mountain at all, it’s a hill. That’s despite Hugh Grant trying to tell us otherwise in the film ‘The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain’ which was filmed on the hill.

The summit gives good views over the city if you turn around also all the way up to the Beacons. I lay on the grass, aloft a Bronze age burial mound, had a sandwich and read my book, Kate Atkinson’s ‘Case Histories. I had forgotten what a fantastic writer she is.

I timed my descent to coincide with the opening of the village pub at 2pm, or at least that’s what I thought. It remained stoically closed despite me pacing up and down outside with my tongue out. I checked their FB page and the sign outside the pub. Both said 2pm. I gave it another 30mins but there was no sign of anything happening so my beverage for the day was a can of coke from the local convenience store. Even purchasing that wasn’t without its hassle ……. no, you don’t want to know, life’s too short.

My Pentyrch beverage – its the best I could do.

The sun was sweltering. The 3.05 bus was 30 mins late. There was another high point though, I got chatting to a man from the village, a keen Cardiff rugby supporter.

Just one more low point to go dear readers. The bus did eventually arrive, went around the village and picked up a cackle of Year 11 very excitable schoolgirls on their last day of term. The volume ratcheted up by the minute. The driver asked them to dial it down as he was having trouble concentrating on driving. That worked for a period of time but then all was forgotten. An elderly man busy making a phone call, sat in front of me, began to loose it, standing up and cursing at them. Another man stood up remonstrating with the first man. I think we were just one finger-jab away from a punch being thrown when the bus driver pulled in and cooled the situation. We seemed to be a million miles away from the peace and tranquility I had experienced on top of the Garth.

Postscript

I made a return visit a few weeks later on a Sunday in order to complete the Creigiau loop on the No.63. A lovly sunny day with time for a walk in the fields and a beer and a read in the smashing King’s Arms at the end. That’s more like it.

Young’s London Original at the King’s Arms in Pentyrch.

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Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus No.62

A trip to Rhydlafar doesn’t have anywhere near the scariness it used to have when I was young. It used to be an orthopedic hospital. ‘In fact the hospital started life in The Walk, Cardiff in 1915 and had the descriptive but somewhat horrific title of ‘Hospital for Limbless Soldiers’. ‘After WWII it moved to Rhydlafar, the site of a former American military hospital. The extensive hospital site finally closed in 1998 and is now an up market housing estate.

I caught the No.62 from Cardiff Bus Interchange. Once past Llandaff we pass the ribbon of housing developments continuing to extend north west out of Cardiff. If you look at a map of the county of Cardiff you quickly realize that this is the only option available for expansion of the city.

The bus drops me off at the outskirts of Rhydlafar. I quickly realize that there are no facilities here for picking up food or drink. After a wander around the estate I head east across the undulating meadows for a 40 minute walk on the network of footpaths that fortunately still exist. It was a glorious May day with spring flowers everywhere. The walking route is perfect and I am back at the bus stop to catch the next No.62 back to Cardiff an hour later.

My book for the day was ‘How to make the world add up’ by Tim Harford. He presents the excellent ‘More of Less’ programme on Radio 4, using statistics to back up or refute stories in the news.

Having missed out on sustenance so far I arrange to meet my wife for coffee in Waterstones back in Cardiff. Putting my own book back in my rucksack in Waterstones made me somehow feel I was looking guilty of stealing it. Tim Harford said there was only a 0.35% chance of me being accused of having done so.

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Bus-Book-Beverage – Cardiff Bus No.61

Today’s trip on the No.61 took me from the Cardiff Bus Interchange, out through Pontcanna and onto the Fairwater and Pentrebane housing estates. By the time you get to Firs Avenue in Pentrebane you have gained a fair bit of height and get some nice views.

One feature of the area is the golf-ball like water tower. Nearby is the Ty Bronna trig point. Being a trig point enthusiast I gave it a visit. I fear its days may be numbered as the field in which it sits is laid out for housing development. Will it survive? Will it be destroyed? Will it be moved? Who knows. It is not the best specimen of a trig point now without a spider, flush bracket or sight holes. It sort of makes me wonder if it is the original trig point or some sort of replica replacement.

As there didn’t seem to be anywhere In Pentrebane to pick up a beverage I headed over to St Fagans. It really was a lovely walk through the woods to get there. I can recommend it.

I took a look at the house where the first man to get to the South Pole lived. I can hear you all shouting at me that Amundsen. Well, he was the first to get to the geographical South Pole. The first to get to the magnetic South Pole was Edgeworth David in 1909 who was part of Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition. He was son of the Rector in St Fagans and grew up on the old Rectory.

I had lunch in the Plymouth Arms; a sausage roll and a pint of Bass. The former was tasty, the later not so good. My book for the day was ‘Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths around Swansea’, a nicely researched and written book from a local history point of view.

A walk back through the woods to Pentrebane to pick up the 61 back to town made for a good day out.

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