Date: July 6th
Day 9 Destination: Aberlour, the home to whisky of the same name as well as Scotland’s favourite biscuit, Walker’s Shortbread. As mentioned in the previous post, I headed to the North-East of Scotland from the South-West as the weather there had gone bad.
Day 9 Travel Map
Day 9 Costs: £3 (Luss-Balloch bus) + £5.80 (bus from Elgin to Aberlour) + £3 (dram of whisky near bus stop)= £11.80
Money saved by Spirit of Scotland Pass: £68 (single from Balloch to Elgin)
Lessons Learnt
- Feed in bus directions from the start of the bus route: I missed only one public transit connection this entire trip & that was on this day at Elgin. I had the stop pinpointed on Google Maps & even reached the spot just in time but the bus stops had no signage indicating the direction of travel. I stood on the opposite side of the road like a fool while the bus drove past in front of me. I could have avoided this had I put in “Elgin bus station to Aberlour” that would have helped me gauge the correct side of the road to catch the bus from.
Elgin bus stop
Ramblings
The day started of fantastic with sunshine & a late travel start at 10 am. Used my body clock wake up time to my advantage by charging my battery pack, camera battery & laptop before I had to pack up & leave. I was accompanied by this charming family whilst minding my own business. Thankfully, they did not consider my laptop to be food.
Almost no pictures for this day as it was just spent sitting on trains & buses. Strung together 2 buses & 3 trains back to back to reach my destination in 8 hours. Add in 15-20 minute walks to the campsite from the bus stop on each end with heavy luggage & you’ve got a very tiring day of travel. Here is my picture shouldering the load waiting for the bus at Luss bus stop. 😀
That being said, I do not feel tired or uncomfortable when I’m travelling by train. Buses & long running ferries give me extreme bouts of motion sickness but trains are almost soothing for me. It was good to be back on the Glasgow-Central Aberdeen route via Stonehaven. I wholeheartedly recommend a day trip to Stonehaven from Edinburgh / Glasgow if you live in these areas, Dunnottar castle is amazing & the harbour town is very picturesque.
The long journey makes it all the more frustrating to have missed my connection to Aberlour. I thank my lucky stars for having exactly one bus left in the day to make up for the one I missed. I did what every responsible Scottish traveller should do, go to the nearest bar & have a dram of whisky.
All this was totally worth it as I had a packed day of travel in the area the next day (the next post in this series will be a long one). Also the campsite was pretty darn amazing. The featured image was taken just outside the campsite & looks a lot like the Windows XP base wallpaper. Here is my pitch after reaching the Aberlour Gardens Campsite. Special thanks to the campsite owner who chatted about nearby distilleries & her recommendations as well as extending the famous Scottish hospitality. Drank couple of soups from the vending machine to give my cold-ridden throat some respite & slept like a log.
Aberlour pitch
