IF YOU think coach trips are only for school kids or OAPs, you may want to think again. Earlier in the year, I signed up for a mystery seaside excursion to see whether we should all carry on coaching. I had no idea where we were heading, or whether it would be somewhere I'd been before, but the bus was full, so I wasn't the only one who was up for a surprise.
I felt like I'd bagged a bargain at £34 return, given that the nearest coast is at least two hours away from my East Midlands starting point. In my family, I'm the one who makes all the travel plans, books the days out, and checks the weather forecast to see whether we need to change our plans. So it was great not to have to give any thought to where we were going, how to get there, or when to head home.
I absolutely loved not being in the driving seat, both literally and metaphorically. I was hoping for North Wales , but it wasn't to be. When the coach started to head east along the A14 towards Norfolk , I was a bit apprehensive, given the fact that I'd recently come back from a week in Great Yarmouth and have family who lives near there, so it's somewhere I've visited a lot over the years.
It would be ironic if the mystery tour ended up in a place that you visit all the time, but it's just the luck of the draw. I was hoping our bus would divert off to somewhere like Southwold on the Suffolk Coast, but we ended up in Essex’s Southend-on-Sea , home to the world's longest pleasure pier stretching 1.3 miles out to sea.
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