I am sorry it has taken a while to write this up but events intervened, not least an unexpected three days in Italy this week!
Last Monday I did the trip to the Hereford and Worcester area report in post 435. Given the sunny weather forecast for the week I considered carrying on from there to a second day in South Wales, but decided against. I had an unmoveable board meeting on Wednesday but Thursday & Friday looked good and I didn’t have to be home until Saturday afternoon. The heatwave forecast was just too hot though… except in the North East. In the last few years I have been extending my boundaries in the North East, reaching Newcastle on a couple of days in 2018 then last year my two trips - one across the Pennines (using the wonderful Wright 888) and one moving up Northumberland as far as Alnwick. The next logical extension was to Berwick and after that – well why not to Scotland!
So last Wednesday I headed off late afternoon and drove to the Travelodge at Seaton Burn, arriving just after dark, grabbed some sleep and then up very early on Thursday. For logistical reasons I decided to do the further and longer trip first, so a further hour’s drive up the A1, parked up in Berwick on Tweed at an ideal free car park down by the city walls, and I made it up the High Street and to Golden Square in time for the Borders bus 60 bound for Galashiels departing at 6.20. First time on Borders Buses, I had established that there was a good value day ticket but only through the App, so for the first time ever I downloaded a bus company App and bought a ticket on it, which I validated in time for the bus. The bus was a modern E200 with working USB charging points, clean and well presented. Unsurprisingly I was the only passenger as the bus headed north across the border and to Eyemouth. The first journey out and last journey back go this way – I don’t know why but there were passengers boarding in Eyemouth. Eyemouth looks pleasant but there are only glimpses from the bus, another trip (maybe not by bus) is required. Then the bus heads inland through lots of countryside and a few small towns and villages. On a lovely sunny morning the countryside was gorgeous, open fields, hills, purple heather in places, and the towns, such as Duns, Greenlaw and then Earlston, looked really attractive. Notable though, even this far north, the predominant colour was yellow rather than green. A decent number of people boarded and alighted at various places, surprisingly four alighted at Greenlaw, not sure what was there, but never more than about a dozen on board.
I alighted at Melrose, a delightful small town, to grab a bacon roll and coffee at a small bakery and have a look at the abbey (from outside the locked gates). Not enough time to head down to the river here before getting a 67 for the short journey to Galashiels, this being a 17-reg Optare MetroCity, of which Borders Buses have quite a few. Not sure I can tell the difference between this and a Versa to be honest, seemed perfectly good but, as with Versas, there were noises from the drive shaft or differential or something which just didn’t sound good. We passed Tweedbank station, the terminus of the relatively recently reopened Borders line, loads of people waiting on the platform and a train just pulling in, this line seems to have done very well. On to Galashiels and I alighted at the bus station, opposite the railway station where more people were waiting for the same train. I knew Galashiels was nothing spectacular but it was impossible to avoid the town and it was perfectly pleasant in the centre, I stocked up here with something to eat for lunch and returned to the bus station.
My next trips were on the X62 to Edinburgh, but with a stop for an hour in Peebles. The route is hourly to Edinburgh, with double deckers, plus hourly shorts from Galashiels to Peebles, with singles. I chose to get double deckers on both legs and both were 19-reg E400MMCs with bike spaces. The Borders Bus website warned of delays on the route due to 8 sets of roadworks, a diversion and heavy traffic in Edinburgh for the festival. My first leg to Peebles was pretty much on time, about 5 minutes late at Peebles, plenty of passengers, the majority looked like they were headed to Edinburgh.
Extremely scenic route, much of it alongside the River Tweed with great views, better of course for being on a double decker - thoroughly recommend. I felt Peebles was worth a stop and it was, good architecture -very Scottish style – in the centre and decent down by the river. Maybe 30 minutes would have been enough but that didn’t work for me. And so on the second half of the journey on another E400, also busy, this arrived under 10 minutes late and stayed that way to Penicuik. Another fairly scenic section with more distant hills. Then from Penicuik it got very slow. Not from road works or diversions, but simply picking up passengers and taking fares. It seemed so slow at almost every stop. There are parallel Lothian routes and I guess maybe there had been a gap but until we were full we spent an age at stops. From 8 minutes late in Penicuik we were 29 minutes late when I got off in Old Town and none of this was due to traffic. Sitting upstairs I couldn’t really see why it took so long, whether Lothian passengers were stung by Borders fares, or whether it was slow card readers or people fumbling with cash and delays giving change. Either way, given how quick Lothian is, something needs to be done. Eventually we were overtaken by a Lothian bus and things improved.
For me this trip was really not about Edinburgh, I have been there many times before and it seemed extremely busy with people given the season, the weather and the festival. I walked through a little bit of the old town and down over the North Bridge, currently covered by roadworks, to Waterloo Place to head east. I had time to divert from the direct route by taking a 26 to Portobello where I got off for a quick look round, lots of people at the beach but not much else to see, then another 26 on to Musselburgh. I don’t know what I paid for these journeys, it was flat fare, card on the reader, no ticket, next please, very quick. Musselburgh seemed quite a pleasant town in the centre and by the river and also on the way out past the racecourse. From here it was the 124, an East Coast Buses Volvo B5TL, seemingly standard fare for the route. A bit suburban to start with but then a stretch along the coast at Aberlady, which was attractive, and on to North Berwick. My day trip might not have been about Edinburgh but it very much was about North Berwick, a town I had never been to before. Busy but really lovely, with the harbour, beach and sea front and a pleasant town alongside. Very much the sort of place I like. I had over an hour wandering around here.
The penultimate leg of my journey was on Eve’s coaches 120 to Dunbar. This doesn’t show up on BusTimes but their own website has a live tracker which shows where the buses are and which vehicle it is. Mine was E23, a modern E200, presented immaculately and with a good dozen passengers. Before we left one lady realised she had left her iPad in a shop and the driver called the shop for her and they agreed to keep it secure for the lady to collect it the next day – that’s good customer service – we still left on time. The route out of North Berwick mixes sea front and housing estates before heading east close to an attractive section of coast again, before turning inland to East Linton and then on to Dunbar. Dunbar was another must for me and I had about an hour here, with time to explore the lovely harbour area and further down the shoreline. Much quieter than North Berwick and less obviously touristy but really attractive.
In fact I had rather more than an hour at Dunbar, from looking at BusTimes and the Border Buses website it was clear that my final bus, the 253, had been badly delayed and taken half an hour to get a few yards from Edinburgh bus station. Both sites are fed from the live data from the bus but then slightly differently, they were so much in synch I believed them and didn’t actually present myself at the stop until 20 minutes after the bus should have left. That was fine – I only had to wait 10 minutes with a handful of other people. The East Coast Buses X7 was similarly affected by the delay and running late. When the 253 did arrive it was over half full and there was only one window seat remaining. This was an E200, another bike bus, with two bikes. Several people alighted at the leisure park at Innerwick, not far out of Dunbar, and others at various places along the route. We passed Torness nuclear power station and then diverted to Reston and its station, a new addition on the East Coast line. I had heard this had not been provided with many trains but there were about 10 cars in the car park and a train had just arrived with about a dozen descending the steps from the station to the car park. After this it was into Eyemouth where the last of the passengers alighted, although four more got on, then finally back along the coast road into Berwick. It was now getting quite late and someone had decided to reduce the dual carriageway north of Berwick to single alternate lane working with long queues either side so we were further delayed, finally arriving back in Berwick around 20.30. It was beginning to get dark so again I didn’t spend much time in Berwick. A fourteen-hour trip is pretty long, and I still had an hour’s drive back to Seaton Burn, with yet more road works on the A1.
Borders Buses did a great job generally but they need to improve the speed of fare collection on the X62 – London banned cash years ago so how about Edinburgh too? Everything showed up, on time so far as within their control, well presented, USBs working, all live and accurate data online and my one day ticket on the App worked well – good value for £8.40. Obviously I paid more to go the way I chose from Edinburgh to Dunbar but taking the 253 direct and that would have been the cost of the whole trip. And generally speaking I thought the buses had reasonable numbers of passengers – quite encouraging I am not sure the Borders 60 would have covered its costs but a fair number of people seemed to rely on it, mostly I guess heading for work (although there were two walkers who alighted at an obscure country footpath). The X62 and 253 were very well patronised. A brilliant day out – day 2 to follow….
Usual allotment of 10 photos:
Melrose
View from the X62 near Innerleithen
Peebles
Edinburgh - the old town - with people!
Musselburgh
North Berwick
North Berwick
North Berwick
Dunbar
Dunbar
PART 2
I’m not sure anyone is reading this but I’ll continue anyway…..
The second day of my trip I had a comparative lie-in and drove the short distance to Bedlington for a 6.30 start. There are two parts of Bedlington, “Red Lion” and “Station”. I parked in the car park behind the main street at “Red Lion”, which, although working class, seems to have considerable pride and is clean and well presented. I saw an early X21 heading into Newcastle with a decent load, despite the early hour, and then got my bus on the 2 to Morpeth, a standard Pulsar. I bought an Arriva day ticket, there were quite a few passengers on this too for an uneventful ride into Morpeth. I had a few minutes here, enough to buy a bacon roll, before continuing north on the X18 as far as Amble. This was an E400 and we took on quite a few passengers in the villages we passed, including the not very scenic section into the grounds of Northumberland prison! I was pleased to be at Amble so early as, although little was open, the attractive areas round the harbour and beach were quiet. I have been here at busier times and it can get quite crowded. I had about 50 minutes to explore at leisure before boarding another Pulsar on the X20 heading north through Warkworth and I alighted at Hipsburn roundabout. From here I walked just under a mile to Alnmouth and just had enough time to get properly into the village, which is a really lovely spot. The X20 avoids Alnmouth but the X18 used to go round the village until recently; too many parked cars put a stop to that and now it stops by the roundabout at the edge of the village, from here I boarded another X18 on to Alnwick, this was the E400 in platinum jubilee colours. Even on this well presented bus the USB chargers did not work.
I visited Alnwick on my trip last year but very happy to go again as this is a really attractive small town. There is a great cobbled market square where the powers that be have succeeded in not allowing cars or even delivery vehicles to damage the views. Time for another coffee and roll and to buy some lunch before moving on with Glen Valley Tours to Wooler. Until very recently there used to be two routes from Alnwick to Wooler, the 470 and 473, via different sets of villages either side of the main road, but now they have been combined into the 473, slightly more frequent, serving all the villages and therefore taking somewhat longer to get to Wooler. Glen Valley Tours also now run the 472 Alnwick local service to Shilbottle. The 473 runs every two hours but with a 57-minute journey time this is challenging to run on a standalone basis so the two routes interwork, with the bus coming off the 472 to run the 473 then, 10 minutes later, the incoming 473 resumes on the 472. However this was not the plan for my journey, there was a driver waiting at the bus station, presumably to give a break to each of the other two drivers, and he instructed the incoming 472 to continue as a 472. The incoming 473 arrived on time and then set out for Wooler again, with the new driver at the wheel, about 10 minutes late. This was a reasonably new Optare Solo in red and white colours. The ticket machine didn’t work but the driver told a passenger who wanted a return ticket not to worry, just tell the driver she had bought a return ticket. I only wanted a single and didn’t need a ticket. The driver didn’t take any prisoners and we arrived in Wooler barely late at all via some pretty scenic rural Northumberland countryside and past the very weird Chillingham Castle. Oddly BusTimes is in a real pickle with these routes, it still shows the old 470, nothing about the 472 and both new and old timetables for the 473. No vehicles or live times are shown.
I had about 20 minutes to explore Wooler – a nice small town but this is probably enough – before getting my next bus to Berwick. Oddly there are two routes between the towns, both run by Borders Buses, and they run at about the same times, and I chose the 267 via Ford and Etal. On BusTimes these routes are not in the Scottish section of Borders Buses, although the vehicles show on the map, but the timetable shows in Borders Buses within the North East area, perhaps because they do not enter Scotland at all. My bus was an Optare Metrocity, with working USB charger – Arriva please note! – and it took me on another scenic route. Ford and Etal are both very attractive villages which form part of a managed estate, a hidden gem tucked away in the Northumberland countryside.
And so I arrived at Berwick on Tweed again at about lunchtime. As I had rather feared there was now some mist arriving on the sea breeze and it was partly cloudy here. I had more time to wander around the town, having only visited very early and late the previous day, this including part of the town walls and the area around the barracks east of the town centre. Berwick is a very attractive small town with an interesting history, well worth a visit.
From Berwick it was heading south on the coastal X18. There is a combined hourly service with Travelsure’s 418 and X18 and Arriva’s four-hourly X18, but I wanted to do this on a double decker, so it had to be Arriva, another E400. This is an area I know pretty well and have visited separately in good weather so I was not too fussed that much of the journey was in mist and low cloud. There are some good pictures which I missed out on due to this but many of the best places, such as Seahouses and Beadnell, are hard to see properly without getting off the bus anyway. Just before turning right off the A1 for Belford we joined the back of a slow moving queue. We then went through Belford, stopped for passengers and then on to get back to the A1, where the bus turns left to head north before turning right towards Bamburgh. Just as turned right we saw a huge combine harvester with escort heading south at a snail’s pace with the queue we had been in still behind it. Shouldn’t be allowed – the delays will have been horrendous!
I stayed on the X18 all the way through the coastal section back to Alnwick. We were back into sunshine almost immediately after we left the coast at Craster. Alnwick was now quite busy and I was heading south on the X15, this was running about 15 minutes late due to earlier delays. It turned out that the previous X15 from Berwick had not run, I heard a report, not confirmed, that it had been in an accident just outside Morpeth: certainly the bus (7528) hasn’t been out since. This batch of 14- and 64- registered E400s (7522-7533) seem to me to be more powerful with better acceleration and higher top speed than ‘normal’ E400s, good for the high-speed running on the A1 on several sections of the route. These buses must have a very high mileage now and I understand they are to be replaced shortly. I stayed on my bus through Morpeth and on to Newcastle, getting off at Haymarket Bus Station for a wander round the university and hospital area, an area where I had not ventured before. It all looked good in the bright sunlight with a mix of modern and classical buildings plus the council offices and, nearby, the beginnings of a Geordie Friday night out! Finally an X22 back to Bedlington to pick up my car. This had a good load but maybe in part because the previous X21 had been cancelled, not good when the combined service had reduces from every 10 minutes to every 30 minutes by 18.15. A shorter day this time – just under 13 hours on the road! I stayed another night at Seaton Burn and drove home the next day. No complaints on any of my journeys, all ran reasonably to time and even Arriva seemed OK, I think this is one of their better areas. I do think closing Jesmond without local replacement is a mistake, I cannot see lots of staff transferring to Ashington or Blyth and if they try and run the existing local Newcastle services then they won’t have enough staff for everything. If cuts then start affecting the existing routes in North Northumberland there will be an irreversible decline.
I had actually woken in the middle of the night before and changed my plans slightly, having seen the risk of coastal mist in the afternoon – which is why I had done the Edinburgh trip on the first day as the effect of cloud on this trip would, to me, have been much worse. My original plan for day 2 had been to visit Newcastle first and head straight for Alnwick, returning via the Amble section in the afternoon, but I was able to work out a way to switch this due to the risk of this coastal section also being in cloud later – which I think it was. What I could not do was switch the section north of Alnwick to head up on the coast and back via Wooler as the times of buses to Wooler made that impractical. Good to be able to react to circumstances when possible. Two great days out and the area of my trips now extended in the east all the way to Edinburgh. Maybe some day I will go beyond Carlisle in the west…..
Some more pictures:
Amble
Amble
Alnmouth
Alnwick
Countryside between Alnwick and Wooler
Wooler
The picturesque village of Ford
Berwick
Low cloud at Craster
Newcastle
but it's not something I'd say in mixed company! Some people 
