Once again the topic here returns to preparations for our grand cycling adventure planned for later this year, a planning process that we have been through before so one might think that there is little more to say. Booking early pays off, as we have discovered many times over the years, and by this time, barely two months before we depart, surely all our train and ferry bookings should be in place so we can focus on getting our bodies fit enough for the journey we have planned. (For those new to this blog this link will explain more.)
Looking back to our cycling tour around Holland in 2025, the journey with our bikes to the ferry port in North Shields (near the city of Newcastle) could not have been more complicated. Two ferries, an island crossing, two overnight stays, three different trains then finally a cycle ride along the banks of the River Tyne to the ferry port together made it by far the most complicated and stressful part of the whole holiday. Transport bookings we had made in advance all had to go smoothly as a single delay in just one leg of the journey might have put in jeopardy us making it to the ferry on time. So naturally with all this in mind we started this year's plans with the intention of making the home to port journey simpler and less liable to disruption. But our options are still limited. The location of our home on the west coast of Scotland where we have limited road choices, many of which are dangerously busy, will always make travelling with the bikes a challenge unless we just strap them onto a rack and drive somewhere with them. Rule out this option and we are back to relying on trains. Luckily these things run to timetables and so long as the changes between one train and the next leave sufficient time then any slight delay becomes insignificant. Sounds simple, eh? And so it is for humans but as soon as you include bikes then the problems start. They need to be booked on board as part of the ticketing process and this is where the whole system falls apart.
Plan B which we are following and for which, as mentioned before, the ferry is now booked and paid for, needs a section which reads "Getting to Newcastle" by train, the first part of which is the sub-plot of getting us and our bikes to the nearest railway station, some sixty miles distant from home. What would be useful at this point is finding someone with a motor vehicle big enough to carry us, our bikes and our luggage who is also willing to drive us where we need to go. Here we are in luck! Visiting us from time to time is Gemma, a lovely lady friend who lives not far away, and after a little experimentation we are pleased to discover that our bikes will fit into her car. Better still she seems to relish the challenge of delivering us somewhere. All that remains is for us to book some train tickets. Simple, one might think.
Our route starts at our nearest train station then goes first to Glasgow, on to Edinburgh then finally down the East Coast Main Line to Newcastle. One would think that arranging this as a single booking would be simple and for humans, yes it is. For bikes, no chance. We know from our previous experience that trains on the final leg from Edinburgh have only limited bike spaces (and once on board they must be lifted and hung up in a small cupboard) so we book this section of the journey on its own and reserve two bike spaces. This just leaves us the other two legs - starting point station to Glasgow then Glasgow to Edinburgh - so these we try to book. We soon discover that between Glasgow and Edinburgh there is no need to reserve bike spaces at all. They can travel free so long as there is enough room. Our nearest station to home is 'Arrochar & Tarbet' so we try to book ourselves plus bikes on a train that will bring us into Glasgow with time to spare. To do this we can use the internet or else a phone app but whichever way we go we meet obstructions. The app says we need to reserve spaces for the bikes but it won't let us do it at the time of day we need to travel and the website tells us that all the bike spaces are fully booked on all the trains. We find this hard to believe so resort to calling a helpline and eventually discover that the internet is lying! Apparently booking bike spaces cannot be done until closer to the departure date, but nobody can tell us when this might be. Again, we can buy tickets for humans but not for bikes. Already these complexities are complicating our home to port journey, just as before.
Simply getting this far has involved us in hours of research and frustrating phone calls (most often speaking with someone whose accent is difficult for us to understand) with all the stress of wondering whether we should not simply revert to one of our earlier plans and drive ourselves all the way to Newcastle. Our van would then sit there happily waiting for us to return when our holiday was over. What could be simpler?
But then it happens. After multiple failed attempts at train booking, one day, quite by chance, we fire up the app again and suddenly it is allowing us to book spaces for our bikes on the train we want. Jumping past yet another stumble (the app won't accept our payment) we hit the website and make the booking. It is done!
Finally we can relax. There's just the small matter of getting the actual tickets and these must be obtained in advance from a ticket machine... which is when we discover that our starting point at Arrochar seems to be the one place in the entire country that does not have one of these. How wonderfully unhelpful is that! To remedy this we now have to plan another journey to a train station that has a ticket machine. The battle goes on...
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