In retrospect

I am back home from my trip after a weekend relaxing (and gently roasting) in Brighton. It has been an amazing challenge, and I've seen some wonderful places and talked to some interesting people along the way. The trip has highlighted the vast differences in culture and landscape on this island of ours, but also many things that tie us together. I've been particularly fascinated by the way accents change from place to place, as well as looking at how towns and villages have developed – some more successfully than others. Another interesting concept is how we try and cash in on history, plus how the UK's high streets are performing in the current economic climate.

On the social media front, it's been quite a steep learning curve. I didn't set off with the most modern equipment available, but hopefully this will prove that you don't need an iPhone to go off exploring and reporting back in real-time. I'd like to thank Lucy at Virgin Media: although she couldn't offer me anything in the way of mobile internet, she was able to lend me a spare Nokia 3120 Classic which came in very useful when the battery of my own 6300 started suffering under the intensive usage that it is isn't normally subject it to. I still don't quite understand how live video-streaming works (RTFM!) but thanks to Qik for not shouting at me. Inspiration for the trip probably came from #smc_mcr and I'd like to especially thank Martin and Josh for their encouragement.

On the transport side of things, the majority of mishaps along the way were caused by my own assumptions and misjudgements as opposed to being problems with the system. All the journeys I was at the correct bus stop for operated. Most were on time, with only two services ten minutes late, a couple more five minutes late. The biggest delay was on the very last leg and was caused by a road traffic accident: we arrived in Brighton 24 minutes late, which is rather outside the control of the bus company. Comparing route branding and publicity along the way threw up some interesting differences over what might appear at first sight to be the epitome of a corporate culture.

This was always going to be an independent adventure, but I would like to thank a few people at Stagecoach for their offers of assistance and general help with queries. A big thank you especially to Phill at Chesterfield and Ray(?) at Lincoln for sending me free day tickets: I shall be donating the equivalent amount to Christie's appeal on their behalf. Also my thanks go out to Nigel and Linda based way out West, and also to June at Peterborough. I did also correspond with a very helpful man from the West Scotland division, but unfortunately have misplaced his email.

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who has been following my adventures on Twitter or on this blog. This includes family, friends and colleagues, especially Anthony for lending me his camera and Mark at Kaonix who responded to the challenge with his usual vigour! I've raised over £300 for The Christie hospital in Manchester – if you'd like to help raise this total further then you can still make a donation online at Justgiving. Thank you to you all.

What next?

There'll still be a few items to come here: I'll be explaining in more detail what went wrong and why; there'll be an award ceremony covering various categories; plus I have a lot of photos to sift through, the best of which I'll share with you online.