Suzy, Drinker Of Coffee

Day 4 – Montrose & Perthshire

This was another trip that showed the flexibility of these tickets, but also how you can become unstuck quite easily. Took 607 on the 39 to Montrose, and then got on the same bus again when it returned to Montrose, taking me back to Dundee. I then took Dart 317 on the 16 to Perth, then proceeded further west for the 17 towards Gleneagles, as far as Auchterader.

I got to the bus station in enough time, but the bus was nowhere to be found. Called the depot after about 10 minutes, and what they basically said was as no-one else had phoned in, the bus must have been in on time. I left it at that, and asked around the stance. Including those that couldn’t speak much English, we had 9 passengers waiting for this service. For passengers going beyond Dunning to points not served by other services (Abbey Road area of Auchterader, for example) it’s the only bus for two and a half hours – and there were no school buses for back-up, as the schools were off! So, I called back… the bus was on it’s way with 41509 on the 17 – and the tickets on the floor showed that the bus had came straight off the 13, a sort of horseshoe shaped route which (sometimes) seems to have an issue with reliability, not helped by tagging on lots of extra bits to it over the years! Anyway, 41509 left with ten passengers, and more were picked up out on the 17 to Auchterader, and got the same bus in reverse. The bus went out showing “DUNNING/VIA/KINTILLO” beause the manually wound Mercedes don’t have Gleneagles Hotel – this might well be the last one now. I hadn’t been to Auchterader for a while, so did what I had to do, and went back for the bus – knowing that it was late, but it had made up a bit of time.

For the first time in *ages*, stopped a the New Hong Kong (the better of the two take-aways in the vicinity of the bus station) for a Deep Fried Pizza… second this year, but not as many as before! Some of the foods I used to eat make me feel sick now, but this isn’t too bad. I then found yet another way to travel from Perth to Dundee – via Meikleour, Blairgowrie and Piper Dam. Took Solo 253 on the 58A from Perth to Blairgowrie. When the blind fired up, it showed that the various “via” points flipped correctly, except that “via Cargill” showed as a 58, not a 58A. The driver commented that this was occasionally an issue. Then, changed to Volvo 614 on the 59 from Blairgowrie to Dundee. 614 was therefore my last bus of the day, the last bus of the month, which made journey number 150.

posted by Suzy Scott @ 23:20