TGO Challenge 2018 Day 11

We pick up our travels with our duo on a train leaving Edinburgh and traveling...... The destination today is Tarfside. Our original itinerary was to be in Tarfside campsite on Tuesday, North Water Bridge caravan campsite Wednesday and walking into Montrose on Thursday. 
I felt we needed to leave a day early encase it took us more than a day to reach our destination and as you will see it almost does! 
We love the train service in Scotland. If you need to get almost anywhere on the western side of Scotland (west of line drawn north and south through Aviemore) then you can take a train and what is not serviced by train is serviced by reliable bus transport. However if you are on the east side of Scotland and north of the larger cities like Perth and Dundee then you are out of luck for a train and the bus service might be available but is not all that simple to figure out. 

In order to get to Tarfside from Edinburgh, first we had to take a train to Montrose. Could we have taken a bus? yes, but we like the trains. Of course you can get everywhere by car, but who wants to drive on the wrong side of the road! 
To be honest the one thing that never crossed my mind was to look into hiring a car and driver to take us to Tarfside. Not sure if that service exists (Uber?) and also not sure if it would have led to as good of an adventure.
Montrose as you will recognize is also our finish point, so we are literally going to the end to make our way back West. 

If you google bus routes you get this page of information with timetables and map. Seems pretty simple really.

 The first thing you find upon arriving in Montrose, which was a breeze and beautiful train ride is that the bus does not apick up (at least all the time at the Montrose train station as posted) The train station attendant and indeed a few of the people around the station told us that only if the driver "feels like it" will he come through the train station parking lot looking for riders. Fair enough the major bus stop is out in front of Lloyd's Pharmacy in the center of town. We know the street well and it is only two or three blocks from the station to the bus stop. We can get an ice cream or a pastry at the bakery if we want while we wait. 

Inside each bus stand (pictured above) is a bus timetable, now while these might look very confusing once you sort out the arriving and departing columns you can get the gist of it, but the part that makes you wonder is that they were all dated about a year ago and being told by the locals (who travel by bus all the time) that most of the times and indeed bus numbers are no longer running makes logistics a bit tricky! 

So looking at the only real information at hand I see that there is no bus to Tarfside listed on the timetable and not even a bus to Edzell Indeed most of the locals didn't know where Tarfside was! So trying to get as close as I could we waited for the number 30A bus and decided to ask the driver..... Why we love Scotland....

On our selected bus was a relatively new driver, but with him a supervisor that you could just tell had been on this route for decades... and a character that loved to tell stories. I told him what we were trying to do and he promptly told me that there was no bus service to Tarfside... deflating for sure, but a problem to be solved later this afternoon. As for getting to Edzell, we first needed to go to Brechin. Brechin it turns out is some kind of clearing house for most of the local buses traveling to the much smaller villages and towns in the surrounding area.  He said relax and he would tell us exactly what stop to get off at for a bus that would then take us from Brechin to Edzell. 

Below is our corner stop in Brechin where we waited for our bus to Tarfside.

So all this, while a bit confusing, part of it was because the bus supervisors brogue was very thick and we only got about one in four words especially as fast as he was talking, was not taking us very long. the process of getting to Brechin seemed easy, but getting to nowhere easy doesn't always feel good! 

We had to wait about an hour for our bus from Brechin to Edzell and they did have a little electronic board in the street side bus stand, but it kept showing our bus being delayed.

It did arrive however and the driver was indeed going to Edzell after a few stops first along the way, so we were off again and going in the right direction. 

Edzell is a town I have researched plenty as it is on our walking route and contains the Tuck Inn, a famous eatery that most Challengers stop at for a meal or ice cream three quarters of the way between Tarfside and North Water Bridge

In fact the bus stops right in front of the Tuck Inn and right next to the Panmure Arms Hotel. (below) The Panmure Arms turned out to be a life saver. Not knowing whether it was true or not that no bus service existed to Tarfside, even though the internet said it does!, I went to the front desk and asked. They could not have been nicer and more accomodating. 

The answer is that the bus service is the School bus that runs between Edzell and Tarfside and you can get a lift for free if they have room. As it turns out you can also get a lift with the post office van as well if you can flag them down. 

The internet shows a bus number because the same people that run the bus service for the public also run the busses for the local rural schools. 

Looking more closely at the internet time table you now see a very important piece of information- "Operates only on schooldays"

The lovely people at the Panmure Arms even called on the phone to the bus company to confirm that sometime around 3 pm there would be a bus going through Edzell to Tarfside and we could get a lift if we could flag them down. This gave us about 2 hours to kill so what did we do to reward the Hotel and ourselves, we sat in the bar and drank.... 

We were told that it would be a bus marked with Glenesk Travel on the side so we waited and watched at the marked bus stop, waited and watched and waited and watched... about 4 pm an unmarked van drove by carrying students. We waived but it passed us by, our one chance for the day to get a ride to Tarfside gone, but just as it past it slowed and the driver made a U turn right in the middle of the road and came back for us. It turned out the regular bus was broken down so he had a loner van today. We explained where we wanted to go and he enthusiastically invited us onboard and we took a seat right next to the local high school students.   

 After dropping off the last of the students at least 10 miles further back, he drove us the rest of the way to the center of Tarfside. He was a non stop talker (with a heavy brogue as well) and wouldn't accept any money for his service. We had made it from Edinburgh to Tarfside in one day and by 5:30 pm. 

(downtown Tarfside below)

The Estate that owns Tarfside allows Challengers to use the field for camping during the Challenge each year and Tarfside has become a natural funnel point for dozens and dozens of Challengers during the last few days of the walk

We are here a day earlier than expected on our original itinerary but already the field is filling up. We find a spot and pitch our tent.

Tarfside is a very small village with a church owned by the Archdiocese. The church itself (St Drostan's) does not see much use excepting during major religious holidays, but the attached facilities which have rooms, kitchen, showers, are used and rented often and are kept in very good condition. 

The inside of St Drostan's

Besides its location Tarfside is appealing because every year the TGO Challenge staff rents the facilities and caters to Challengers coming through with tea, cakes and full meals in the evening. You can also rent one of the four rooms if you get there in time (first come, first serve) 

Everyone is very accommodating and works hard to make sure you get your fill 

Vicky and I did join in the first night and eat with other Challengers in the St Drostan's kitchen

Complete with tea and cake after in the living room

 Hopefully you have enjoyed our little adventure within an adventure for Day 11. While not really a trail adventure it has one element I love about travel, the kindness of strangers. Scotland continues to amaze me with the kindness and generosity of city and country people and their willingness to help. Personally I think it just gives more chances just to talk!