Bus journeys from Willerby Road to Kingswood Leisure Park are surprisingly straightforward, if you're lucky

Hull's Kingswood Leisure Park may lie on the outer reaches of the city but it has a lot to offer.

Several fast food and restaurant chains are dotted around the site off Raich Carter Way, including a Wendy's claiming to be the world's biggest and a Five Guys under construction. It is also home to a Cineworld boasting a '4D' sensory immersive cinema screen and a Hollywood Bowl entertainment complex which received a £250,000 makeover two years ago.

The Leisure Park is easily reachable from almost the whole of the city by car. This is true even including from the likes of Hedon Road and Hessle Road with journey times of just over 20 minutes depending on the traffic.

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But if you don't have a car, unless you fancy an hours' long walk or have a bike, the only way to get there is on the bus. And for people living in some parts of Hull, that is not just one bus, but two, each way.

What if someone without a car decided to go there from west Hull say on a whim one Wednesday afternoon to grab a burger, bowl or see a sensory film? To see how much of a challenge that would be, I travelled from Willerby Road close to the border with the East Riding to the Leisure Park on buses.

The journey was billed to be more than three times longer than travelling by car, about an hour and five minutes in the former compared to 21 in the latter. But it was on the whole fairly smooth, though it required enough luck for everything to go without a hitch.

The journey from Willerby Road to Kingswood Leisure Park

My journey began at the Ainthorpe Grove bus stop on Willerby Road where the Number 54 bus was due to stop on its way to Hull Paragon Station. I arrived a few minutes before the bus and found the stop had a shelter, handy if it was raining, but lacking seats and the screen displaying updates on arrival times was broken.

Thankfully that did not matter too much because after arriving at the stop at 3.15pm, the bus came eight minutes later. There was only a handful of people on the bus so getting a seat for the journey was not a problem.

The ride was pleasant and it took us straightforwardly through the west Hull suburbs on Willerby Road, down Spring Bank West passed Chanterlands Avenue and onto Spring Bank. There was little in the way of traffic, probably because of the time of day, which made all the difference in getting to the station reasonably quickly.

It was interesting to observe that no cars were choosing the use the bus lanes despite changes to rules in March suspending enforcement during the day before 4pm. They probably would not have made much difference for drivers at that time but as a bus passenger it was certainly a relief to have a smooth run so I could make my connection.

The bus arrived at the station at 3.38pm and I expected there would be a lay over of some length while I waited for the Number Six bus to the Leisure Park. But I was surprised to find that the bus was already waiting at the stand and people were boarding so I walked straight from one to the other.

That was where the smooth run from Willerby Road paid off because had the bus gotten stuck at a red light or in traffic along the way I would have missed it. It could make the difference between missing the start of the film I had wanted to see or being late to meet a friend for food.

As it was I was fine and I got on the bus and it left at about 3.45pm. The bus was busy considering the time of day, but it was going all the way up Beverley Road and was a single decker so it was not unusual.

I arrived at my final destination, the bus stop on Gibraltar Road just by the Hollywood Bowl, at 4.11pm. It took ten minutes less than Google Maps' original estimate, but had I hit a snag on the first leg of the journey it could have taken a lot longer.