Nicky Gardner: Argyll bus services feature in new book

Argyll’s buses get a big thumbs-up in a newly published book. Bus-Pass Britain: 50 of the Nation’s Favourite Bus Journeys celebrates the delights of slow travel across Britain. And Argyll scores with two of the favourite bus routes in Britain. Both routes are described by local writers who responded to calls put out by Bradt Travel Guides and the editors of hidden europe travel magazine.  The region also comes in for praise for the quality of information provision about local bus routes and schedules.

First of the top local choices are the West Coast Motors / Scottish Citylink 926 service from Glasgow to Campbeltown, a route that writer Deirdre Forsyth (formerly with Argyll and Bute Council) describes as ‘taking in a great sweep of West Highland landscape including Loch Lomond and magnificent Kintyre’.  Deirdre should know as, for many years when she lived in Ardrishaig, the 926 service stopped right outside her front door.  It was the bus she regularly used to connect with the wider world.

Kintyre Links

Deirdre’s piece for Bus-Pass Britain describes one of the longest of the fifty routes in the book. Travellers arriving in Campbeltown from Glasgow often have a sense of having reached the end of the road (or even the end of the world). But, for those who still have an appetite for further explorations by bus, Deirdre puts in a plug for other Kintyre bus services. She mentions the delights of the Service 200 to Southend and the 300 and 445 routes that serve villages up the east side of Kintyre to Carradale.

Cowal Connections

The second Argyll journey that features in the book is one of the shortest in the entire volume.  Under the title Cowal Connections, Douglas Blades describes the journey from Dunoon to Portavadie.  Douglas is a man well-placed to appreciate the full range of bus services across the region. He is Public Transport Officer with Argyll and Bute Council. ‘Off to the Bermuda Triangle again’, jokes the bus driver in Dunoon as he starts his vehicle for the ride into the Cowal hills at the start of Douglas’s ride. Douglas then teases out the details of the journey with a rare passion and a strong appreciation of the unfolding landscape.

Bus-Pass Britain is structured around the fifty routes, but there is plenty of other information on bus travel between the covers. It is very clear that holders of Scottish concessionary bus passes fare rather better than their counterparts south of the border. In Scotland, the National Entitlement Card bus passes can be used on many longer-distance routes, including those operated by or on behalf of Scottish Citylink, Scottish Express and Megabus.

The Long Haul to Skye

Scotland has the privilege of hosting the longest bus route in Britain that can be followed by bus-pass holders. It is the Scottish Citylink 916 service that leaves Glasgow at ten every morning and on certain days of the week runs right through to Uig on Skye.  This journey of almost eight hours is bus travel at its most civilised. The bus pauses for an hour in Fort William for lunch.

Border Hopping

Scottish bus-pass holders also benefit from concessions that allow them to use their passes over the border to Berwick-upon-Tweed and Carlisle. There is even one route to Newcastle-upon-Tyne on which passes are valid. This is the 131 service from Jedburgh run by Munro’s.  It crests the border at Carter Bar and then serves remote communities in rural Northumberland on the run south to Newcastle.

Community Assets

Other Scottish routes that feature in the book include a run up the Tweed Valley from Berwick to Galashiels, a romantic ride by Loch Tummel and Loch Rannoch, plus a journey from Inverness to Thurso.  Would that there had been space for more!  I have a few personal favourites, but there was just no space for them in the book.  On a spring evening, the slow bus from Inverness to Edinburgh is hard to beat. It is the M91 operated by Parks of Hamilton. And the spinal route through the Outer Hebrides by bus and ferry really is one of Europe’s great slow travel adventures.

As one of those who helped shape the book, I initially thought Bus-Pass Britain would appeal mainly to older travellers who are perhaps not in such a rush to get to their destinations. But writers like Deirdre and Douglas reminded me that buses are community assets that need to be protected. Scottish folk may be prone to complain about their bus services, but the truth is that Scotland has one of Europe’s finest networks of local bus services. And if young people in the region do not support their local bus services now, what hope is there that those services will still be around in 20 or 30 years time?

Nicky Gardner

Nicky Gardner is a Berlin-based travel writer. She is co-editor of hidden europe magazine.  In 2009, she wrote (with Susanne Kries) the Manifesto for Slow Travel, which tries to breathe a little sanity into a world that takes fast travel for granted. Bus-Pass Britain: 50 of the Nation’s Favourite Bus Journeys is published by Bradt Travel Guides.

The photographs accompanying this articlew are, from the top:

• Coming in to Inveraray, West Coast Motors/Scottish City Link new fleet of supercoaches for the 926 Glasgow to Campbeltown run and the run to Oban (For Argyll)
• Campbeltown (For Argyll)
• Portavadie Marina resort (For Argyll)
• North Cuillin ridge from Portree Bay, Skye (Moyearo, Public Domain)
• Part of the town walls at Berwock on Tweed (Quevaal, Creative Commons)