Day 22 August 2nd London to Glasgow.

Day 22 August 2nd London to Glasgow.
We were up early even though we had plenty of time we wanted to make sure the London rush hour did not hinder us. We left the guest house at 6:45am and walked to the station. The first set of stairs was not a problem as they sloped down. The train quickly appeared and we were on our way; being early meant there were seats available next to our luggage. Thirty five minutes later we arrived at South Kensington where we had to change from the Piccadilly Line to the Direct Line in order to travel to Victoria Station. There were two sets of stairs to climb; at the first a burly young man offered to help and at the second two young ladies offered; Hallelujah. Two stops later we arrived at Victoria Station and from there we walked about 500 metres to the coach station. Time taken from go to woe was 50 minutes. Victoria Coach Station was huge; there were 20 coach bays; busses were going everywhere. A sign offered a return day trip to Paris with six hours of Hop on Hop off bus in Paris. The Price £167. I spoke to a young Polish man who was about to commence a thirty hour bus journey to his home town in Poland. We boarded our bus at gate 19 and started the journey on the dot at 9am. This was an express bus which made one refuelling stop and two comfort stops for its passengers. The bus was fully loaded. At the beginning we travelled along the M1 highway for about a quarter of the journey and then we followed the M6; we left London at 09:00 and arrived at Glasgow at 17:40 after travelling 405 miles. On the way we passed by Lockerbie and Gretna Green. The bus ride was not pleasant; it was very hot inside as the air conditioning was not working. It was interesting to see how all the big trucks keep to the left lane while our bus kept in the second lane from the left; we passed an almost continuous line of trucks until over half way. As we neared the Scottish boarder the terrain changed from gently rolling plains to hill country before returning to rolling low plains just before Glasgow. The Scottish country side was not as closely populated as the English. We were met at the bus station by A & H who will drive us around Scotland for the next twelve days. A will drive and H will be our tour Guide. We travelled 40 miles to our B&B at the small village of Tarbet on the shores of Loch Lomond. From our room we could overlook the loch. Our B&B, Lomondview was constructed 11 years previously of light brown stone blocks of various sizes neatly patterned together.