Day 25 - Trouble in the Glens

Callendar to Fort William

The pretty town of Callander marks something of a transition. As I've already said, it stands on the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands and I'm about to head into a landscape rather different to any I have travelled through before. This is wild, sparsely-populated country with relatively few roads and its public transport, what there is of it, is every bit as sparse.

Callander also marks a transition in the kind of vehicles I can expect to travel in. With so few potential passengers, operators tend to buy vehicles which can be put to more than one use. Not too many capacious double deckers here, and conventional single deckers are rare, too, except around the bigger towns. Instead, coaches are often used, partly to make the distances between highland settlements more comfortable and partly because they can also be used for tourist excursions to Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye during the summer, for school visits to the baths and Christmas shopping trips to Glasgow in the winter, and for ordinary bus services in between.

I drive my hosts at The Crags Hotel from their beds and into their kitchen a little earlier than normal as I have an early bus to catch, one of only two that day heading north. I can't afford to miss it, so I request an early breakfast which my hosts deliver uncomplainingly (bless them!) 

My bus from Callendar

Yesterday's journey began within the portals of Scotland's largest bus station. Today, it starts from one of Scotland's smallest. In fact, it is little more than a bus shelter tucked away behind the imperiously-titled Dreadnought Hotel, a great craggy thing with turrets and white-painted walls of the kind American tourists adore. I strongly suspect it's got tartan carpets, too.

I wait for my bus to Killin in the narrow four-person bus shelter. It seems that none of the big operators consider a service like this to be economically viable so it's operated by a local coach firm, Kinghouse Coaches. A stately double decker pulls out and heads towards Stirling, revealing a rather diminutive minibus cleverly converted into a coach. It has no number and no obvious destination sign, but this is clearly my bus to Killin.

I clamber into its cramped, womb-like interior and find a seat right at the front. There are three other passengers, a young couple with a guitar and a man who climbs into the seat directly behind me, ramming an ancient rucksac onto the luggage rack above him. I pull out my notebook, whet my pencil and prepare for a journey I'd been looking forward to for ages.

“You taking notes, then,” comes a voice from somewhere uncomfortably close to my right ear. I jump and turn to see the man behind's face pushed into the gap between the head rests.

“Er, that's right.” I admit, cautiously.

“Yeh”, he said, knowingly. “You a writer, then?”

“Erm....

“Yeh,” he said. “I was a writer once. See that bird over there?”

We are passing a field with what is plainly a Buzzard perched on a telegraph pole.

“That's a Golden Eagle, that is. Yeh. Hundreds of them round here. If you know where to look...”

I am about to take issue with his identification but then realise that the spectacular Falls of Leny are  shortly coming up on the left. This noisy, picturesque cataract tumbles away right by the roadside and I didn't want to miss it.

“Lived and worked in the Highlands 30 years man and boy, yeh. Used to own a business in London, big house and all that, but I threw it all up to come here.”

I turn and nod politely, completely missing the Falls of Leny. We begin to draw alongside the mirror-like Loch Lubnaig, but every time I began to write something down he is at it again.

“I was out stalking with this posh bloke once, right up there. Cor, deers and eagles everywhere... and he took a shot at this stag but only wounded it. Terrible. Well, then I had to shoot it myself, didn't I? Then he pretended to his mates it was him who shot it...”

This was infuriating. Why can't you leave me alone and let me watch the view?

“Yeh. I know every inch of this area like the back of my hand. Look.”

He shoved his hand through the gap in the seats for me to look at. I looked at it and he seemed pleased. This was becoming surreal.

From Loch Lubnaig the road bounds on towards Balquhidder.

“Worked on the Royal Estate once, yeh....” 

The Braes of Balquidder... apparently

I narrowly miss the beautiful Braes of Balquhidder with Loch Voil disappearing off into distance, one of the greatest views in all Scotland. The road pulls up over the tops to Lochearnhead, I'm entirely surrounded by the most sublime scenery yet this continual stream of verbage in my right ear is constantly distracting me. 

“You a walker, then..?”

I concentrate hard as we glide up Glen Ogle, studying the landscape with grim determination while testily trying to tell him that no, I'm not a walker, I'm travelling by bus for the purposes of writing about bus travel and if you'd just leave me alone for a minute...

“Yeh. I wrote a book once...”

I suspect he meant 'read' a book once, and I doubt even that was true. 

The coach rolls gently down through dark stands of pine before turning off the main road. We pull over. Oh, joy of joys, my pesky fellow passenger is at last getting off! I have no idea where he is heading, despite the fact he probably told me sometime between recalling how a member of the Royal family lost the key to Balmoral Castle down the toilet and his description of being snowed-up in a cave on the Cairngorms for three weeks and having to eat his own socks to survive. I was overjoyed to see him go. Shameful, I know, but he'd completely spoilt a journey I'd been really looking forward to.

“Cheerio, then” I call, with relief.

“Yer, cheers, mate,” he calls back. “Best of luck with the walk.”

The bus continues down the road to Killin, a village spread out more or less at the head of Loch Tay. The Falls of Dochart spill picturesquely under the village's stone bridge which, judging by the number of adjacent tea shops and cafes, makes this a popular place to stop off and have a cuppa.

The Falls of Dochart at Killin

I bid farewell to the driver and wander into the village. Killin is actually a bit off my route. I could have stayed on the coach and travelled on to Tyndrum where I could catch another bus to my overnight stop in Fort William. But I have other plans. There is another type of public transport that can only usually be found in the depths of the countryside and I am determined to give it a try.

Running a bus service in an area with a thinly scattered population means that sometimes even mini-coaches don't make economic sense. But people still need to travel. So what if you used vehicles that were already running through the countryside and just add a couple of seats for the occasional passenger? 

This was the reasoning behind the Post Bus, which is basically a postal van with a few extra seats in the back. It certainly appealed to the Post Office. Their vans were already out there delivering and collecting the mail in some of Britain's remotest corners and they were running to a timetable, too, so passengers would know roughly when they would turn up. The Post Office could forge closer ties with its customers, and the fares would subsidise the costs of delivering the mail. In turn, local people would get a small but reliable bus service in the remotest of places – everyone's a winner.

In fact, this was not a new idea. Eighteenth century mail coaches would often carry a few paying passengers and in recent times it wasn't uncommon for rural bus services to also carry mail in locked compartments.

The first Post Bus went into service in February 1967 between Llanidloes and Llangurig in North Wales with Postman Owen at the wheel. His normal mail van had been replaced with a slightly bigger one, but in all other senses it was all exactly the same; he travelled over the same route and to the same timings, only he now had space for seven fare-paying passengers. 

Initial trials proved popular with the public and services were quickly rolled out across the country wherever there was a demand. A fleet of Landrovers were acquired and put to work in rougher, more mountainous areas like the Scottish Highlands. Eventually some 300 routes were being operated, though by 2005 this had fallen to 166. They still carried more than 148,000 passengers, though.

Post bus

My intention is to catch the 12.30 Post Bus to Crianlarich and pick up the onward bus to Fort William from there. I'd checked it all out online and I knew what time it was arriving, but I popped into the post office at Killin just to double-check.

“Hello,” I call from the door into the empty post office. “I'm just checking on the 12.30 post bus. Do I catch it from here?”

“I'm afraid not,” said the Postmaster. “They discontinued it last month.”

What? Oh, brilliant. I've just spent the last two days getting myself to Killin specifically to travel on one of the last post buses in Perthshire and now they've gone and cancelled it. Worse still, I'm stranded here. I have a room booked in my name in Fort William and currently no way of getting there. There is no other local bus service except the Kinghouse bus back to Callander. This is serious.

The post master seems anxious to make a sale of some sort, so I agree to buy a few stamps while he tells me about a taxi firm which runs taxis at certain times of the day for the same price as a bus ticket. I thank him, write down the number and leave the post office clutching the tartan kilt-shaped air freshener he'd also managed to sell me. 

Before I phone for a taxi-bus, I make a final check of the information board on the bus stop outside and discover that the City Link service from Dundee to Oban is due in half an hour and this passes through Crianlarich which is on the road to Fort William. I hadn't intended to use inter-city coaches, but needs must...

Relieved, I begin waiting. I wait. And wait. The Oban bus is now ominously late. Its a full 20 minutes after its due time and it still hasn't arrived. My spirits begin to ebb once more. Just then, a coach unexpectedly appears and breezes up to the bus stop and I clamber on board, much relieved.

It's obvious that all is not well, however. The driver ignores my request for a ticket as he seems involved in vicious hand-to-hand combat with a ticket machine he's not been trained to use, and more delay ensues as he tries to figure out how to issue return tickets to Oban for a Dutch couple I'd been waiting with. While he struggles to make sense of the single sheet instruction manual, another coach driver who was coming the other way and stopped casually pops his head round the door and one of those "have you heard the Police have closed the Crianlarich road" conversations ensues.

It is clear we're going nowhere.

The driver extracts his trapped fingers from inside the ticket machine and reaches for his phone to call base for advice, only to discover that they'd been ringing him for the last half an hour with the news that the police had closed the Crianlarich road due to an accident. There's much to-ing and fro-ing until the driver finally decides to take a completely different route to Oban – and one which would be no use to me. Crestfallen, I get off again and the Oban bus finally leaves 45 minutes late. 

However, I then discover that another City Link coach is heading this way, this time to Fort William, and it is due in about 15 minutes. OK, it will only get as far as the police road block at Crianlarich but at least I'd have a comfy seat, and I'd be heading in the right direction at last.

CityLink to Fort William

The Fort William bus arrives 20 minutes late and we are soon on the road to Crianlarich, hurtling along the strath at unaccustomed speed and in equally unaccustomed air-conditioned comfort. We arrive in Crianlarich seemingly within minutes, and at the very instant the Police re-open the road north. At last, my luck seems to be changing. It seems logical given the day's earlier disappointments to stay on board and we shoot through Crianlarich, heading north towards Tyndrum through incredible mountain scenery. Huge, muscular mountains crowd our coach's windows all the way to Bridge of Orchy where we begin the long climb up to Rannoch Moor.

Rannoch Moor takes your breath away. Yes, it's Superlative Failure Time again, folks. This is a place of wild and extravagant beauty, of huge jagged mountains, bright reflecting water and lily-dotted lochans on an ocean of wiry heather. It's vast, slightly scary, and it absolutely makes your heart sing.

We sail across the moor and begin our descent into Glen Coe, one of the world's most hauntingly beautiful places. This is the scene of the infamous Glencoe Massacre of 1692, when 38 members of the Clan MacDonald were murdered by those to whom they had offered shelter and hospitality, Campbells mostly. It was an act of revenge against the MacDonalds for not having pledged allegiance quickly enough to the new monarchs William and Mary. Forty more women and children died later from exposure after their homes were burnt to the ground. With so much blood spilt, it's no wonder that visitors can sometimes discern a sad bleakness in the air, though on a bright day like today it is merely magnificent.

Glencoe

We are quickly down to the sea again at the village of Glencoe and then along the coast road to Fort William, my home for tonight. The town, home to Britain's highest mountain, is a busy and not-so-little place with a town centre that is a slightly clumsy mix of gritty Scottish vernacular and 1960's concrete dating from the time when Fort William really began to hit its stride as a mountain resort. With the traffic now banished from its newly pedestrianised High Street, the town at last seems to have a little more time for people.

Behind the High Street is Fort William's seafront, or more accurately, its loch-front though this is effectively just a busy dual carriageway. I munch on a sandwich among the lorries and the caravans for a while but its noisy and not much fun, although the view across Loch Linnhe is rather fine.

My guest house is back along the road to Glencoe so I decide to wander along the lochside and check in early. It's much further than I'd thought, so I'm worn out by the time I get there. That sort of sums up the day, really. Tiresome, stimulating, and disappointing in equal parts. I've been let down, hampered by unexpected events, and in the end it was all over a bit too quickly. I was wondering when I was going to get a day like this.

Mind you, if you are going to have a bad day then there can be few more impressive and more uplifting places in which to have one.

NEXT: Fort William to Portree, Isle of Skye - where I take the Road to the Isles, find myself at my destination earlier than expected, and end up taking a school bus into Viking country.

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Map courtesy of those awfully nice people at Google