Sunday 4th and Monday 5th April
We arrived at Euston in plenty of time and spied a couple of heavily-laden cyclists. They were returning to Aberdeen after visiting relatives. I kept on looking at the departures board to see which platform our train was on, and eventually, it was announced: 13. We made our way down the ramp and looked for coach N, berths 5 and 6. The Scotrail host was there with a list of names.
I showed him our ticket.
“We’ve re-arranged our booking because of the threatened strike. We were initially supposed to be travelling Tuesday but we’ve got a berth for tonight. Coach N, Berths 5 & 6.” I showed him the 8-digit booking reference.
“I’m sorry, sir, those berths are booked to a Mr & Mrs. Howlett. We don’t have any passengers named Walker on our list.”
Our man walked off with all our paperwork, which worried me, but a few minutes later he returned. “I’m sorry, sir, these tickets are for Tuesday and we have no record of you having booked berths on this train. I’m afraid you won’t be allowed to board.”
“Well in that case I’d like to speak to the train manager.”
“He’s down the far end of the train.”
Within minutes two stowaways had decoupled their tandem, hung it in the guard’s van and taken their luggage to the car with reclining seats, waiting for the train to set off. I felt that when I had my confrontation with the train manager, I would hold all the trump cards if we were snugly settled in a seat and travelling along at 60 mph rather than standing on a platform with a laden bike.
When we were under way I decided to buy some coffee. This was a tactical error as the man who had told me we were not allowed to board the train was serving at the hatch. Unsurprisingly, he recognised me and soon enough I was introduced to the train manager. Firstly he was going to put us off at Watford. Then he was going to charge us a full fare to Inverness and I would have to try to claim it back from Scotrail later. When it became clear that I was having none of that and that as a fare-paying passenger I didn’t expect to have my holiday wrecked firstly by a company that wasn’t big enough to admit to its mistakes when it screwed up, and secondly by a silly blinkered man who didn’t seem to realise that having two extra passengers on his almost empty train was not going to be the end of the world, he eventually conceded that he didn’t disbelieve me, but he still wasn’t going to open one of the many empty berths so that we could actually lie in a bed for 8 hours or so.
I slept fitfully. I remember waking up in Preston and again in Edinburgh, in this case when the train split into three parts, heading for Fort William, Inverness and Aberdeen. We went through Stirling in the pouring rain. I looked out for the castle but didn’t see it. We crossed the Tay at Dunkeld and after this we could see snow-covered mountains through the rain-drops on the window. Gradually the snow encroached closer to the track and as dawn broke, somewhere the other side of many thousands of feet of nimbus cloud, no-one noticed. Shortly before we arrived in Inverness, the rain stopped.
The first port of call was the ticket office where someone equipped with a computer would be able to key in our booking code and tell me what had happened. It took a few seconds for us to find out that whoever had changed our booking had reallocated us to the wrong Sunday and we were down to travel on 11th April. Just as we were doing this, the train manager and his sidekick appeared and I beckoned them to see for themselves that we were bona fide passengers who had been let down and that if he had had his wits about him and a laptop, then he could have done that in London and saved us all a lot of grief. He was peevish and unapologetic and has been the subject of a strongly-worded letter of complaint to Scotrail.
While we were at the ticket office we made doubly sure that our booking on the 11.01 to the Kyle of Lochalsh was properly arranged. We were assured that it was, but for good measure the lady we spoke to date-stamped our tickets and gave us prints of our reservations. After that we found some breakfast and then explored a small section of NCN 1, a bit we hadn’t ridden before.
We left Inverness at the appointed time, arrived at the Kyle an hour and a half later, realised that it wasn’t raining and then rode towards the bridge. It wasn’t long before we had to get off and push: the bridge is fairly steep, but the side-wind made it impossible to ride. Once over the other side, we headed towards Broadford but looked for the left turn to the Glenelg ferry.
This was where we found our second snag: the ferry wasn’t running because of the high wind so we would not be able to get to the B & B that we had booked. We rode to Breakish and found Ruisgarry, which had vacancies. We unloaded our stuff, stored the tandem in the large hangar which our landlady’s husband used for his boat repair business and had a couple of hours’ kip while the wind tried to tear the fence apart and uproot the palm tree. At about 6.30 we phoned for a taxi to take us for some food in Broadford. By this time it was pouring with rain and we didn’t fancy either walking or cycling.
There’s nothing like a good meal to lift the spirits, and the Claymore provided both food and drink. The beer was Red Cuillin and it went down well. After we had eaten we found a Co-op (that’s why I love the Co-op: it supports outposts in the far-flung places where the other supermarkets wouldn’t bother) and made sure we had some calories in our panniers for the following day. The Co-op phoned Norma the taxi driver and we returned to our B & B for about 10 hours’ sleep.