Scots Wha Hae! Part 3 - Mahalo, the Bus

Did you read Part 2B?

On the Ember bus to Bridge of Orchy

Although our room at the City Apartments in the Kelvingrove was comfy, we didn't sleep quite as well on Saturday as on Friday night.  Other residents came in loudly and later, and it took me some time to fall back asleep.  Eventually, it was morning, so after making another round of tea in our kitchenette, we headed outdoors to grab some breakfast.  While we were waiting for the cafe at Roots, Fruits, & Flowers to open on Saturday morning, we wandered past Urban West, and it looked like a great spot for us to kick off our Sunday.

My chai tea latte (bottom) and Chris' - you guessed it - flat white (up top)

My brekkie bagel and Chris' royale bennie - both were incredible!

Forget all the rubbish about Scottish/British food being inedible - those days are long past!

After our leisurely meal, we strolled back to our lodging to finish packing up our things; we'd be heading out of Glasgow in just a bit.  On the way back, the sun finally came out, and we grabbed some shots of our neighborhood for the past few days.

An old church, repurposed as a comedy club and bar - what a cool idea!

The quiet street leading to the Albion Hotel and City Apartments

A gorgeous staghorn sumac plant outside someone's house

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this blog series, when we decided to hike on the West Highland Way, we signed up with a walking tour company called Mickledore Travel.  Mickledore booked our accommodation and luggage transfers, including our "night before the walk" stay at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel in the small town of (you guessed it) Bridge of Orchy.  However, it was up to us to get to the hotel for the night, and when the train schedule opened 90 days earlier, I'd booked us two tickets from the Glasgow Queen Street station on ScotRail, the national rail line.  As we relaxed in our apartment on Saturday afternoon (between our tasting at the Clydeside Distillery and dinner at Brett), I'd received an alert from ScotRail, stating that our previously scheduled Sunday train would not be running, due to damage to the rail lines sustained during Storm Amy.  Stupid Amy, getting in the way of our plans once again!

See the red line on the left leading to Fort William?

That was going to be our train route.  Crap.

Thankfully, we were able to grab tickets instead on the Ember bus, an all electric bus service that runs through the highlands and into Glasgow; while the rail lines weren't clear, the highways seemed to be, and we jumped at the opportunity to experience yet another facet of Scottish travel.  The Ember bus left from the airport, so on Sunday around 11, we summoned an Uber, and it dropped us at Glasgow International; we killed time eating cold cut wraps we'd made for lunch and shopping in the nearby Marks & Spencer food hall while we waited for the bus to arrive.

While the Saturday events for the Great Scottish Run were cancelled due to the storm,

the Sunday distances, including the 10K and half marathon were on!

Maybe we'll run it some day!

Two liter bottles of Irn-Bru in the M&S Food Hall

You know I love a good roasted chicken/turkey potato chip

The bus pulled up just a few minutes late (it probably had to detour around the race-related road closures), but we quickly stashed our luggage in the hold, hopped aboard, and found two seats.  While we didn't initially anticipate taking the bus, it was a really neat experience.  We saw scenery we wouldn't have seen otherwise (the train takes a different path through the highlands), and the bus was comfortable.  Since it was all electric, it was super quiet; every seat had a USB charging station and an electrical plug, and they all came with seat belts, too.  You're required to buy tickets in advance for the Ember (at least 10 minutes before the bus arrives at your stop), so the driver always knows who is on the bus, and which bus stops he needs to utilize; if no one is using a specific stop, he blows right past it, so the journey is also often quicker than advertised.  Honestly, we'd highly recommend it, particularly since it's also quite affordable!

It cracked me up that the abbreviation for Bridge of Orchy is ORC.

This is the one ticket to rule them all.

All aboard!

This might have been the reason the bus was so quiet...the almost total lack of other passengers

Loch Lomond from the bus window

Through the Scottish lowlands

These windy, lochside roads are not particularly wide, and our driver did an excellent job

allowing for oncoming traffic while not putting us too far into the rocks.

But this seemed close.

Scotland can be a pretty damp place normally, but the amount of water we encountered on this trip was epic

The bus dropped us off right in front of the Bridge of Orchy Hotel (it's kind of the only thing in town), and we headed inside to check in...only to be told that the hotel had been been out of power for at least two days with no information on when it might be coming on again.  Oh.  Unfortunately, the hotel's internet was down, so they had no way to communicate this information to any upcoming guests, and since their water pumps also ran on electric, even the bathrooms couldn't be used (the kitchen was also a no go, as everything in there was electric, too).  The staff at the Hotel encouraged us to call our tour company, but they did stress that if no other accommodation could be found, they'd let us stay in a room overnight, although there would be no guarantees of us having power or water ("we have lots of blankets," they assured us; "you'll be warm").

Hanging out in the lobby at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel

Check out the candles on the front desk

Thankfully, when I booted up my AT&T international service, it worked decently well (I'd been using a prepaid UK-based eSIM card for data until this point), and I placed a call to the after hours line at Mickledore HQ down south in England.  I spoke to Mark, who chatted with the manager at the hotel about the situation, and he immediately jumped into action.  Within about 30 minutes, Mark found us a spot at a bed and breakfast in Fort William, the Myrtle Bank Guest House, where we'd also be staying on Wednesday night, the day we concluded our walk on the Way.  Fort William was about an hour's drive, so per Mark's advisement, we grabbed tickets on the next Ember bus to come through, which would happen in about another hour and a half.  

I asked Mark what we'd do about our previously scheduled walk on the Way; would we swap all of our other accommodations around and walk it south to north, versus the originally planned north to south (most folks walk it from south to north, but some reverse the route)?  Jump over the section from Bridge of Orchy to Kinghouse and come back to it later?  Something else entirely?  Mark responded he was already working on a solution, and he'd be back in touch with us as soon as he had more information to relay.  He'd already done a ton of work on our behalf, so we felt comfortable he'd handle things well; since we had a place to stay the night (with power! and water!) and a way to get there, we let ourselves relax a bit, and we wandered around the Bridge of Orchy Hotel to see the sights.  

Quite the sky over the Bridge of Orchy Hotel and nearby buildings

The breakfast room inside the Hotel; the fireplace was wood burning, so they were able to heat up this room.

They also prepared cold sandwiches and put whatever snacks they could find out for folks -

they were really doing everything they could to keep people comfortable.

The bridge in Bridge of Orchy - the Way is just over it

Our second Ember bus of the day arrived on schedule, and we jumped on, ready to be in Fort William and done with traveling for a hot minute.

Bus No. 2!

A bit more incredible scenery from a bus window - this may be Loch Ba

Before too long, we were in Fort William, and we rolled our suitcases the third of a mile or so from the bus stop to Myrtle Bank.  Dora, one of the guest house's staff members, quickly checked us in (she gave us a warm Scottish fussing-over, which felt nice given the length of the day we'd just endured) and showed us to our room for the night, which was actually...an entire house.  The grounds at Myrtle Bank contain many different types of rooms, including two buildings with standard bed and breakfast setups, but there's also a stand alone full house on the property, normally rented out as an Airbnb.  It was the only available spot, so that's where we spent our Sunday night, and it was incredible!  We had two floors to spread out on, a full kitchen, and even a washer and dryer, which we didn't expect to see until we landed and made it back home to Kentucky! 

Honestly, we felt incredibly lucky to find anyplace at all to stay, much less such an amazing spot.  Storm Amy knocked out power to 90,000 homes/hotels/etc., most in this part of the country, which meant that anyone hiking along the Way during this time period had to either head north to Fort William or south to Glasgow to find a safe place to rest.  While we only had to deal with this issue for one night, other hikers we talked to had to detour for two or even three days.  It's a good thing October is low season for the Way; I truly can't imagine if this had occurred in the middle of June, when people throng the walk from one end to the other!

Gorgeous roses grown on site at Myrtle Bank Guest House

One of the main BnB areas of the Guest House

Chris with Loch Linnhe in the background

Spreading out in our spacious quarters

The upstairs loft area looking over the Loch

As we thanked Dora and started settling in, Mark from Mickledore called us back with our next set of plans.  While we'd been riding Ember bus number 2 of the day, he'd arranged a taxi service to take us and our luggage back to Bridge of Orchy the next morning; we'd made a quick stop at tomorrow night's lodging, the Kingshouse Hotel, on the way to drop our suitcases, and then the taxi would deposit us at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel parking lot, so we could hop on the Way from there.  This plan would put us back on track, so no other adjustments needed to be made (fingers crossed it stays that way).

After thanking Mark for all of his help, we made the short stroll into downtown Fort William and the Black Isle Brewery Bar for a dinner of pizza and beer.

The new end of the Way is here in front of the Brewery,

so we said hello to the sore footed walker statue, promising him we'd see him again in a few days.

Lots of delicious offerings on tap!

The pizza was great, too!

Hey, that looks familiar!

Fortified, we trekked back to Myrtle Bank, did some laundry, laid out our hiking clothes and gear for the next day, and sacked out in the comfortable main bedroom.  Tomorrow, it was finally time to hit the trail!

Later!

Amy