Day 18 - Inverness to GlasgowAuthor: jawapro
Date: Sat 07/02/2009 07:39 AM
A day in which a bus gets bogged, trains run late, a bus ignores us, a bag causes trouble, and Emma has a bad day.
It was not always thus, however - and the story begins at the beginning.
We woke up to find Inverness covered in a lightish dusting of snow. Not enough to cause us any trouble - just enough to make everything look pretty.
After leaving the hotel and leaving the master key in the security box thing (there was a 2nd one there now - so they must have found another somewhere), we headed down the street towards town.
Descending ‘Rainings Stairs’ with bags was a lot easier than going up had been.
The Castle from the Stairs again (in the snow this time).
We stopped at Maccas for some breakfast, and then headed to the train station to make use of the Left Luggage facility. Much better this time - instead of paying 5.50 pounds per bag, this time we paid 5 pound for a locker, which was large enough to hold all 4 bags (2 suitcases and 2 carry-on bags).
After ditching our bags, we rushed down the road to the bus station, and caught a local bus up the road to... LOCH NESS!
I’d had my doubts that we’d be able to make it - in fact, I’d fully expected we wouldn’t be able to - but Emma had done the research on the bus routes before we’d left (and we did some more on the net a few days ago). Turns out we could still make the train to Glasgow (just) if we went up to see the Loch on the bus.
We caught the 9:15 bus (the first one) to Urquhart Castle. Emma had identified this as probably the best place to go to see Loch Ness.
First thing we noticed when getting off the bus (apart from the great view of the loch) was that the ground was a lot further away than it looked.
Not a great photo - but my shoes are well and truly below the level of the snow. Quite deep in other words.
This is my first real experience with ‘real’ snow. The soft powdery stuff - not the hard icy stuff I’ve encountered back home on the mountains. This stuff is so fine there’s hardly any resistance. You can’t even kick it at anyone - as it just turns to mist in the air.
Unfortunately for them, the bus that dropped us off in the carpark of Urquhart Castle didn’t make it much further. As it tried to rejoin the main road - it got bogged on some ice, and had to wait for a snow plow to come and pull it out.
Urquhart Castle is ruins - and the visitor centre wasn’t open yet - so we spent a while taking photos of the castle and the Loch itself.
Look out - it’s the Loch Ness Monster!
Actually - it’s a Chickenfeed dinosaur I bought with me from Tassie - but I had you going there for a minute, didn’t I?
Still no sign of the real monster - but we did talk to some people driving an electric buggy with a snow plow who were clearing the tracks for the castle. Apparently this is the most snow here in years. They purchased the snow plow years ago - but this was the first time it’s ever been used. Probably too cold for Nessie to make an appearance.
The visitor centre for the castle eventually opened and we went in. What looked pretty small from the carpark was actually just the staircase down to the real centre. Down here was a small museum, a gift shop, a café, and a movie theatre.
We got a discount because they weren’t sure when the castle would be safe to open (they had to clear away the snow from the paths for OH&S reasons).
The theatre showed a short movie on the history of the castle - and ended with the screen retracting, and the curtains opening to show the ruins of the castle in a great panoramic view through the window. It was a great moment and completely unexpected (by me at any rate). I thought it was a great finale to the movie - one of the best of that sort of effects I’ve witnessed.
^ The movie theatre after the screen and curtains had retracted.
Finally the snow was cleared enough for us to be allowed down to the castle itself. We didn’t have time for a proper look, just grab a couple of photos of it and the Loch before we had to head back to the road to catch the bus.
Loch Ness.
We climbed back up to the bus stop in the carpark with a few minutes to spare. Unfortunately, being early didn’t matter, because when the bus did arrive, it just sailed past without stopping. This was where Emma’s day started going wrong - and she was quite upset that we’d missed the bus, and thought we would then miss the train. Strangely - I wasn’t too worried, and I’m normally the one who panics.
The next bus was only 15 minutes away (the following one was over an hour after that) so we camped out on the road, and waved like mad when it arrived to convince it to stop and pick us up. The driver gave the impression that he was always going to stop, and thought it was strange that the first one (which we had tickets for) didn’t.
The bus got us back into town, and he rushed for the train station - but the train had been delayed, so it wasn’t a problem.
We collected our bags and got some lunch. When the train eventually did leave, it was another small one. There was no room in first class - so we ended up in the general area in apparently reserved seats. This also worried Emma (who was still having a bad day), as we could in theory be thrown out of our seats if the people who reserved them turned up - but they didn’t, so it wasn’t a problem.
The scenery through this trip was gorgeous. I’d been expecting to see the typical Scottish Highlands, but I hadn’t expected it to be covered in snow. It would have been nice either way - but the snow made it look pretty darn impressive.
The train was bound for Edinburgh, but we weren’t, so we had to change trains at Perth. This was another close thing, as our train had been delayed. The 2nd one had been held for us, but we still had to run. This is where Emma’s day got even worse.
Emma’s suitcase (like mine) has a retractable handle for pulling. We’ve used these heaps over the trip. Emma’s bag somehow jammed, and we weren’t able to retract the handle. By this stage, the day’s mishaps had taken their toll on Emma, and she was pretty upset - and declared that the bag wasn’t broken, it just didn’t work anymore. We managed to get it into the baggage rack anyway, and found 2 seats together for the trip (not too easy in such a small train).
After another hour or there abouts, we arrived in Glasgow. Emma rang the B&B from her research, and we organized to head over there. It was about a 10 minute walk, but was slightly more than double that as we were dragging our suitcases with us - and part of it was uphill.
At the B&B I let Emma head upstairs with the key to check out the room to see if we wanted to stay there (I’d done it the last time) and waited for her to come back. She took a while, and the landlord wondered if she’d got lost, but eventually she returned and sheepishly asked me to come up with her. I thought that the rooms must be dreadful but she didn’t want to say in front of the landlord. Turns out she’d gotten the room number wrong, and tried the key in the wrong door. It had actually worked, and when it had opened, she’d seen other people’s bags on the floor. She’d tried to lock the door and try the correct one - but the key had gotten stuck in the wrong door, and she couldn’t get it out.
With a little bit of force and logic (probably more force than logic), I managed to get the key out, and we checked out the correct room - which was ok, so we booked in for the night.
We left our gear in the room, and went out into town for tea and had a nice lasagna at a little restaurant place. I was keeping my eye out for shops that sold luggage in case we couldn’t fix Emma’s bag. There were a couple of possibilities.
I was forbidden to take photos of the suitcase repairs (thanks Em) - so here’s one of the Glasgow nightscape instead.
After emptying the bag, she was able to retract the handle - but that was going to be pretty inconvenient, so we tried to fix it properly. This just made things worse - and for a while it looked like she’d have no handle, or half a handle - but after over and hours work, we eventually got back to where we’d started. The handle can only be retracted by emptying the bag and getting at the workings inside. As long as we can fit it onboard the trains like this - it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll retract it on the last day so it can go on the planes.
We’ve also had a discussion about our plans for tomorrow. We’d originally been planning to go to Liverpool, but didn’t have any real reasons for stopping there other than breaking the trip south. So we’ve changed our minds and are planning to go all the way to Cardiff instead if we can manage it - as that will give us an extra night at the end of the trip, and make things work better. Well - that’s the plan at this stage.
Stay tuned...
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