Waterford to Cork

Before I left for Ireland, I bought a ticket on a 10:25 a.m. bus from Waterford to Cork for today. The bus line is called “The Big Green Bus.”

The train doesn’t run from Waterford to Cork unless you go back to Dublin and connect to another train out to Cork. The Waterford to Dublin leg goes in a vaguely opposite direction from a straight-line journey from Waterford to Cork. Waterford is southwest of Dublin and Cork is southwest of Waterford. So the train was not a reasonable option. Hence, the bus.

I arrived at the designated bus stop almost half an hour before the scheduled departure time. Three other people arrived to take the same bus.

The Big Green Bus has an app that, among other things, provides GPS tracking of its buses. I used the app to watch my bus approach. It got about three blocks from the stop, where, from the map, I surmised it should turn toward the stop, but it kept going straight, getting farther and farther from us. And it never turned around.

One of the people waiting was a local. He said that another bus company, Bus Éireann, runs a bus to Cork at 11:00 that leaves from a bus station less than half a block from the side-of-the-road stop of the Big Green Bus.

Bus Éireann, Waterford to Cork

I went to the station. It doesn’t have a ticket counter, but it does have a Bus Éireann ticket machine. I tried to buy a ticket from it, but the machine didn’t show the 11:00 bus. Frustrated, I asked someone from the bus company and he said the machine stops selling tickets shortly before departure, but I could buy one on the bus.

I went to the appropriate bus bay. There, I overheard a security guard tell someone that the Big Green Bus hasn’t been stopping at the central Waterford stop at all this weekend because of street closures and traffic due to the festival happening this weekend.

What the absolute heck? I bought my ticket online. The Big Green Bus had my email address. They could have let me know. They didn’t.

Or they could have posted a sign at the designated bus stop. They didn’t.

The upshot is, if you’re ever in Ireland, don’t plan to take the Big Green Bus. The parent company of The Big Green Bus is Dublin Coach, so don’t buy a ticket from that company either.

Circa 11:00 a.m.

At the bus station, just before 11:00 a.m., a security guard came to the bus bay and said the 11:00 bus to Cork was cancelled. Because it’s Sunday, he said, the next bus doesn’t leave until 1:00 p.m. (I think they run hourly on weekdays.)

I asked the guard, if I bought a ticket from the machine for the 1:00 p.m. bus, was he confident the bus would indeed run. He responded, “I always recommend that people buy the ticket on the bus, not from the machine because you never know.” That didn’t exactly inspire confidence in me.

In response to another question from me, he also said he was certain there’d be plenty of room on the bus so there’s no reason to buy a ticket in advance. I took his advice and waited to buy a ticket on the bus.

Because I had my luggage with me and no place to check it, I stayed at the bus station. Fortunately, it has some chairs in a waiting area. I plunked myself down and tapped the above words into my iPhone and then read for a while.

Then I saw a lot of people waiting for the bus, possibly more than a bus-full. The guard’s advice notwithstanding, being neurotic, I bought a ticket from the machine to make sure I got one. Then I sat back down to wait and tap, tap, tap.

12:58 p.m.

As I tap this paragraph, it’s 12:58. I’m sitting on an idling bus allegedly bound for Cork. My suitcase sits in the belly of the bus. Huh, I might get to Cork today after all.

3:37 p.m., Waterford to Cork Journey’s End

Cork. I made it to Cork.

The bus traversed roads through bucolic countryside, by some rivers, and through some pretty towns. On the journey, the bus’s window delivered a couple of glimpses of the sea. After making a few stops along the way to pick up and drop off passengers, the bus arrived at the bus station in the centre of Cork at 3:37. (The schedule said it would arrive at 3:15.)

By the time I retrieved my bag from the belly of the bus, found my hotel, and checked in, my watch read 4:00 in the afternoon. That didn’t leave a lot of time to do much exploring.

So, dear reader, you got off easy with a shorter-than-normal post this time. Then again, you don’t have to read these things if you find them too long. As far as I know, no law requires you to do so. However, if you stop you’ll be leaving a very, very, very select group and, therefore, will no longer have the reading of this journal to set you apart from almost everyone else on the planet.

In Cork

I didn’t have a lot of time to explore, but I didn’t squander what time I had. After checking in and settling into my room (“settling into” being little more than a euphemism for using the bathroom), I visited a park about a half-hour walk away from my hotel that a walking tour app I have recommended as a must-see.

You’re probably thinking, with so little time available today, why did that gosh, darned fool (or whatever more colourful epithet you’re inclined to use) spend it walking a half hour to a park, nice though it may be? Why didn’t he save that for tomorrow and take in closer sights today?”

Well, smart aleck, you obviously didn’t look at the weather outside and the weather forecast for tomorrow, now did you? Today threw considerable sun down upon the ground. And the sky showed substantial blue.

In contrast, the forecast for tomorrow says it will rain all day. During my time so far in Ireland, the meteorologists’ precipitation predictions were wrong a few times. But that was generally a matter of rain falling when the forecast called for none, not the other way around.

Maybe tomorrow’s forecast will be wrong in a good way, but I thought it best to assume otherwise. I figured that a literal walk in the park isn’t exactly a rhetorical walk in the park when it’s raining and gloomy.

Fitzgerald Park

Fitzgerald Park is smaller than I pictured from the description in my walking tour app, but still a fair size.

Upon entering the park, I immediately encountered a large, square, unadorned lawn with a structure of unknown origin facing it. The white structure rests on a platform composed of stone paving stones raised a few small steps up from the lawn.

The futuristic thingy swoops up from two points on the platform.

I devised two theories to explain it. One, it might be a bandshell to shelter performers. Under this hypothesis, the lawn might be the seating area. The heck with the audience. No shelter for them.

My second theory is that an alien spacecraft ran out of fuel and glided to a landing on the platform, but now it can’t leave because Earth doesn’t have the type of fuel the alien craft needs. Poor planning on the part of the aliens, I’d say.

I think it’s one of the two, but I’m not sure which. I posted a picture at the top of this section. You be the judge.

The park also contains some treed areas, a pond with fountains and waterlilies, a rose garden, a playground, and some benches. As a bonus, Fitzgerald Park sits on one bank of the wider arm of the River Lee. (The River Lee splits in two on one side of the main part of Cork and rejoins on the other, making most of Cork a large island.)

It’s not the most spectacular park in the world, but it is very pleasant and calming. I’m glad I went.

There and Back

On the way to and back from the park, I walked along a few interesting streets. I put a couple of pictures of them below. On the six-minute walk from the bus station to my hotel, I passed what looked like even more interesting cross-streets, but I didn’t explore them while schlepping my bag. Maybe tomorrow. Probably in the rain.

Today, in addition to the views at Fitzgerald Park, I got some pretty views of the River Lee on the way to the park. I put a picture of that below too.

There. Post done. I told you you got off easy today.