2024-03-02 56 -3

Location

On a road near Inchture.

Participants

Gaelan (talk), and a friend

Plans

Gaelan, and a friend, going to get the Ember to Inchture and walk.

Expedition

Leave home in a hurry to make the bus to Dundee; re-check timetables; go home and eat breakfast.

Leave home again, get the 99 to Dundee; walk over to the Grassmarket "bus stop" for the Ember E3. "Bus stop" is a bit of a strong word here - it's a lay-by with a couple chargers for the electric busses and a "bus parking" sign, but nothing to indicate that you could board a bus here, besides a crowd of others who seem prepared to do so. Sure enough, bus shows up, 10 minutes or so before its scheduled departure; my friend shows up shortly after the bus does; and we're off to Inchture. This is my second time on an Ember bus; they're lovely quiet electric things. Only £2.20 for the 17-minute ride - which shouldn't be notable, but given the state bus prices in Scotland, it's a rather pleasant surprise.

15 minutes later, we're there, on a bus stop on the shoulder of the A90. Cell signal in the village of Inchture is shockingly bad, but thankfully my friend has a better sense of direction than I and we're off in the right direction, despite neither of us having been to the village before. Thankfully, outside the village things improve enough to get a map.

From there, it's a nice walk along quiet country roads, with the A90 roaring by in the distance. The most notable landmark is a farm selling potatoes - but far from the traditional honor system you expect in rural areas like this, they've got a vending machine! Sadly neither of us got a photo of the actual machine, but it's an Amazon locker style thing, where you pay to open a cupboard door and remove the sack of potatoes inside.

The hashpoint itself is conveniently located right on the road; we get the photo and turn back around to Inchture. On the way back, the Ember timetable doesn't line up, so we get the Stagecoach 16 from a stop in the village instead. It's night and day from the Ember; it's a vibrating diesel bus, for one (although not nearly as rattly as some of Stagecoach's fare), and it also takes long detours at each of the A90's junctions to serve a village bus stop; the road network here is not well-designed for local bus service. Once in Dundee, we take a circuitous route into the city center, serving the hospital on the way. All in all, it's timetabled to take 42 minutes - over double the time the Ember took! But it's still faster than waiting for the Ember, barely.

From there it's an uneventful 99 back home.