I thought the point of that problem was how to read the question. One was going to St. Ives.
You are correct and Pam Belluck needs to go back and read the question again.
You can’t tell which way the crowd of wives and cats are going from the riddle. They could just as easily have been going to St. Ives also, because it is pretty easy to catch up to people who are trying to carry around a total of 392 cats and kittens each. Having a single bag with two cats in it would slow down your trip enough.