Our first stop is to let a worker off at the West Midlands Safari Park, which judging by the fibreglass model of a sauropod guarding the entrance, clearly hasn’t heeded the dire warnings of the various Jurassic Park films.
The bus station is a stinker. Bolted onto a 1980s shopping centre, the only way to access it – or, indeed, to make your escape – is by going through Crowngates’ dingy confines, which are drenched in more seagull muck than anywhere which is almost seventy miles from the nearest beach should be.
As soon as we step off the bus in Ludlow, we are haughtily sniffed at by a pair of immaculately brushed Afghan hounds who are straight out of Timotei central casting.