It was the best, because it threw us directly into the paths of your ridge-didge Arraner. Hopping on and off the local buses and making weird connections time-wise immerses you to some extent in the culture. Much more than sitting in a car does. The overwhelming conclusion we came to was YES, public transport for US.
Now for the downside.
1. Lots of Walking
Our B&B was at a little village to the south called Whiting Bay. Well served by the bus, but not all that very frequent. Getting to, and from the bus stop involved walking variously up (to the B&B) and down (to the bus stop). Not only that, but dinner was at the only pub in Whiting Bay - the curiously named MOST Hotel. More on that later.
2. Not getting to places easily
DJ had never seen standing stones, so we took off to see the stones at Machrie by bus. They were great, and we’ll worth the walk from the bus stop. After our visit we decided to walk back to Machrie for lunch and the bus home.
We followed the Google Map route. After some brisk hiking we discovered that Machrie was behind us and we had been striking out in completely (185 degrees) in the wrong direction. The day was sunny, however and the birds were singing and do we continued to the next town, called Blackwaterfoot. The bus from there, after lunch from a ‘serve yourself and put the money in a tin’ bakery cupboard behind the pub.
3. Making connections
A VERY scary thought was missing the ferry on the last morning - THIS morning, in fact. Logic has it that SURELY buses coordinate with ferries, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem. Bus routes on the island are way too complicated to describe here, so I won’t. Needless to say that wait times for the next bus are quite lengthy and confidence in getting there in time is low. We needn’t have worried because our host, Rob, was driving to Glasgow for a car service and was traveling on the same ferry as us. He gave us a lift.
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