Sunday 10/8/2023
- Start: Fort William, Scotland
- End: Fort William, Scotland
- Distance Traveled: 0 miles
After the unfortunate news from the CityLink bus driver at 7 pm last night, I had some work to do. Not only would I be unexpectedly stuck in Fort William for another night, but I now had a string of reservations that my cancelled bus trip was wreaking havoc upon.
Luckily, I’d padded my itinerary with a few days on the back end of my trip. So I wasn’t due to fly back to the US until Tuesday afternoon. My flight plans were still intact (for now), but I still had to spend close to two hours addressing all my other remaining travel plans in the UK that had just been disrupted. My hotel reservation in Glasgow. My train tickets from Glasgow to London. My hotel reservations in London. And my reunion plans with one of my friends from my 2019 Apppalachain Trail thru-hike.
The whole process left me feeling exhausted and a bit anxious. How much longer I going to be stuck in Fort William? Were trains and buses going to be operating soon? Or were the already-flooded roads and rails only going to get worse? The disquiet in my mind kept me awake past 1 am as these questions swirled in my overtaxed mind.
Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep well. At 5 am, the heavy rain pounding on the hotel’s roof woke me and the cacophony continued for the next hour. This torrent of rain was stealing all my optimism that I’d actually leave Fort William today.
At 6 am, I checked the status of the Scotrail trains. Then the weather forecast. Then the CityLink bus status. Nothing had been updated since I went to bed. Was I willing to gamble on what appeared to be a losing hand? Or should I just go ahead and book another night at the hotel now before they sold out of rooms?
By 7 am, sleep was still evading me. The CityLink website still showed that all of todays’ buses were 100% booked – so even if they were actually running again, I wouldn’t have a seat. I was still permitted to rollover my unused Scotrail train ticket to any Scotrail train departing in the next 48 hours. But the real question was when/if they would be running again.
As I stewed over the situation, I felt in my gut that chances were very high that I wasn’t leaving Fort William before Monday. It was time to be proactive and hedge my bets.
I went down to the hotel’s front desk and extended my room for an additional night. At least this way, I had a dedicated and comfortable place to relax. I wouldn’t be stuck waiting for hours in the hotel lobby for things to fall apart a second day in a row. And what do you know…barely a half hour later, ScotRail announced they were cancelling today’s trains to Glasgow. It was official. I wasn’t going anywhere today.
Fort William – Part Deux
Compared to what was going on in the rest of the country, this whole Scotland weather debacle was bizarre and frustrating. We were socked in because of a record breaking 7 inches of rain up here. Meanwhile, not only was it only dry and sunny down in London today (a rare sight indeed), but the capital was expected to reach a high temperature of 25°C (or 77°F)…in mid-October! How crazy is that??
After a leisurely breakfast, I braved the pouring rain to head back to the Fort William Tourist Office. They’d been closed last night when CityLink cancelled last night’s bus. And I still needed to figure out what I was supposed to do with my unused bus ticket. Could yesterday’s ticket be rolled over to another day? Could I get a refund? What were my options now?
The Tourist Office folks were absolutely wonderful! They re-ticketed me on the first bus leaving Fort William Monday. So, assuming everything was up and running again tomorrow, this left me with two possible means of transportation out of Fort William. I had a ticket on the bus departing at 7:10 am tomorrow, and I could (theoretically) still use my train ticket on either of two the trains set to depart Fort William at 7:45 am and 11:40 am. Who knew if any of it would be up and running by tomorrow, but it was the best we could do.
And, so I spent the rest of Sunday in my comfy hotel room binge-watching Season 3 of Lupin in Netflix, while I hoped everything work sort itself out in the next 24 hours. I’d enjoyed my time here in the UK up until now, but I really didn’t want to these impact my plane ticket back to the US. Fingers crossed that this would be my last day in Fort William.
