A ticket to Avoncliff - and great service at "The Boatyard", Trowbridge.

Planning a rail journey I went to buy my ticket this morning.  Avoncliff is a small station near Bath, and it can't be common for people to want to travel from my home station to that specific location.  The man in the ticket office asked if I had bought one yesterday.  Apparently he hasn't sold one for months, and then there were two in two days.  Coincidences happen.

So I planned to get the 14:12 train, and was waiting on the platform for the train to Bath.  I had noticed the display saying that my train was on time, and one came into the platform at exactly the right time. Since there were no announcements and there was nobody to ask, I got on board.  By chance I heard a lady speaking on the phone, saying that she was on the train to Cardiff and would be home soon.  Alarm bells began to ring.  My train was not going to Cardiff due to the second coincidence of the day!  It had arrived at the right moment for my train but it was going to the wrong place.

Too late to get off, the only option was to change at Swindon to get onto my planned train!  It arrived in Bath too late for the connection, but the nice people there put me in a taxi without me even having to think of compaining.

I don't think the taxi driver would ever have found Avoncliff station.  He ended up on the wrong side of the river which in fact was where I wanted to be.  The road was definitely 'interesting', hilly and single track for a lot of the way.

So much for the efficiency of the railways in UK!  All things considered though, it was a good service.

The only thing was that I had already been on a tight schedule if everything had gone perfectly.  Setting off from Avoncliff on the boat I was keen to get to Trowbridge, a few miles away, to fill up with fuel.  "The Boatyard" is well known for selling fuel at rock-bottom prices and its always worth calling in there.  I made it with only minutes to spare and they had already started to lock up, but they very kindly filled my fuel tank with diesel - at only 80p per litre!  5p less than it was two weeks ago!

If you are on the Kennet and Avon Canal and need fuel, this is definitely the place to go.  I have already recommended it to two people, and no doubt I will tell everyone else I meet.