It pays to take the bus from Lifford to Dublin, through Strabane. |
Would you go the extra mile for Bus
Éireann, Ireland’s national bus service? I did yesterday (Tuesday) when I took the Letterkenny express bus to Dublin.
Not only that, I went the extra
mile on the outward and return journey – and I saved myself €5 (or £4) for each
of those miles. Surely that must be the best (or worst) mileage rate in the
land and it was all courtesy of yet another foible of our fickle frontier.
I got the 9.45am bus from Lifford
to Dublin Busaras and returned on the 8.45pm departure. On each leg of the
journey, I went through Strabane, just over the bridge from Lifford. From where I live, Strabane would be the
more expected point of my departure and arrival.
A small cross-border mile with a big saving. |
The reason I set out from Lifford
on the Letterkenny-Dublin express service is that I booked my Bus Éireann
ticket online. That does not allow the option of boarding in Strabane,
presumably because it is ‘across the border’.
In any event, I discovered that my same-day return ticket
would cost me €21.85. A bargain, I thought so I enquired about the alternative to
online booking. That would have been to go to Strabane bus station,
a mile closer to where I live, and purchase from ticket from the booth there. My
phone enquiry to the Translink service revealed that I would have to pay £25
for a same-day return to take the same Letterkenny to Dublin bus, boarding just
a few minutes after its departure time from Lifford.
On the conversion rate for the day,
that worked out at €31.81 – an extra €10 (give or take a few cent) for a
journey that was shorter by a combined two miles.
So I walked the extra mile. Well, I
drove it, but I could have parked my car in Strabane, walked over to Lifford
for the connection, come back on the bus through Strabane (checking my car en
route) and then disembarked there on my evening return.
The online ticket only stipulates a point of boarding and who was going to
prevent me getting off a stop earlier.
Next time I'll take a stroll past the 'Tinnies'. |
That way, I could have saved my
tenner and had a pleasant stroll up Bradley Way, across the grassy knell of the
quaintly named Camel’s Hump with the wonderful ‘Tinney’ sculptures in the ‘Let
the Dance Begin’ installation. Now that I’ve found my way to Dublin, spent my saved tenner on a hearty pub lunch, and returned again all at the border bonanza rate, I think I’ll just do that.
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