Returning to visit D&E Coaches, Jonathan Welch looks at the company’s City Sightseeing routes and local tours programme
It doesn’t seem like long since I was last in Inverness to see Donald Mathieson at D&E Coaches, but there have been a number of developments since my last visit, not to mention the effects of the pandemic, so I called in to see how the firm has changed and evolved since my previous visit. I first spoke to Donald along with daughters Gayle and Amy to find out more about the tours, before taking a trip on both City Sightseeing tours to see the UK’s northern-most city myself through the eyes of a tourist.
For the 2021 season, D&E Coaches branched out to offer its own programme of day and evening tours of the local area in addition to its City Sightseeing operation and regular schools, private hire, contract and Citylink work. Under the D&E Tours brand, the firm offers trips around Loch Ness and an Outlander Experience as well as evening photographic tours giving photographers chance to visit some scenic spots with the benefit of a local guide, and all bookable through its website.
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Donald explained that, unsurprisingly, the season had been much quieter than expected but that cruise ship work was starting to appear on the horizon, with the first due around the time of my visit. “At least work is coming in again,” said Donald. “We have one new client which normally does European tours which is concentrating on Scotland this year instead. We’ve managed to survive, and the furlough scheme has been a huge bonus for us. Lots of operators have been undercutting rates but we’ve held on to our contracts for the NHS, the local authority and a nursing home which we’ve been doing for many years. Private hire and sports venues are starting to return to normal, but we’re only really seeing British tourists at the minute. We usually do a lot of incoming tour work as well as cruises.”
Amy explained more about the new tours: “We have three tours. We have the Jacobite tour, which links with the boat. We started an evening tour as there’s not much to do in Inverness at night. That operates daily. They’re all slowly picking up, and we’ll monitor how they do. The open top tours are doing well too, we’ve had some good loadings on there.”
Uncertainty
“We were probably a bit late starting, as we didn’t know what would happen with the season and places and protocols changing at short notice,” Amy added. At the time we spoke, the Loch Ness exhibition centre was still closed, and boat tours remained unable to land at the Urquhart Castle, this having resumed on 9 August. “Lots of places are still not open tourist-wise,” continued Amy, “which has made it difficult as people don’t just want to sit on a bus.
“Our evening tour has had a lot of good feedback. There is a gin tasting at the Clansman Hotel, with the recently-opened distillery. It ties in nicely but it’s not just about whisky. We expect the photography tour to pick up once the evening light start changing too.”
”It doesn’t matter how many have booked for the tour,” Gayle added, “we will still run it. We will tailor the vehicle size, and we never cancel it. People need the confidence to start travelling and doing tours again. Lots are still holding back. We’ll not really be able to gauge the success of the tours just from this year.”
“Once US travel restrictions ease, that will make a big difference,” continued Amy. “Staycations are popular now, whereas before we had times when it could get really busy with people coming from cruise ships and wanting to do their own thing. The red City Sightseeing route was most popular. For next year, we might look at making some changes to add more to the blue route. The red route is a useful link to the Jacobite boats, and some people choose to walk back along the Caledonian Canal when the weather is nice.”
Local knowledge
“We used a local guide to help prepare the tours, Willie Cameron, also known as Mr Loch Ness. He is a local historian and has done a huge amount of publicity for the loch and the local area. We learnt a lot even though we have lived here all our lives. He took us out when we were preparing the tour and showed us things we’d never have noticed. We have had a lot of input from our drivers too as they know the area well. They were keen to have an input in the new tours.”
Staff engagement and communication has been important throughout the pandemic, Donald added, with a staff Facebook page allowing everyone to stay in touch even when not working. “With being a family firm, lots of staff feel like they’re part of the family and want to contribute. It worked well during lockdown with people posting pictures of what they were doing, and there was a bit of competition to see who was up earliest to say good morning!”
The tours were taken over from Jacobite, which was looking to get out of the bus operations side to focus on its core operation, Donald explained.
Gayle added that lots of people were showing signs of wanting to get back out and explore the country, with golfers also looking to restart golf tours, especially considering that some bookings had already been postponed for a second year.
Looking at the fleet, Donald said that looking to the future, he might consider another full open-top bus, whilst on the wider perspective he said he was thankful for the support of the Scottish Government and CPT. “I was sad to see Jeremy Tilsely leave. I think he did a power of work and didn’t get the recognition for it. He did a really good job for the industry in Scotland. The CPT listened and fought hard for us. Going forward, things are still going to be difficult, especially when furlough stops. We still have to get through the winter.”
City Sightseeing
D&E took over the operation of the City Sightseeing franchise from Jacobite, another local company whose focus was loch cruises, and operates two linked loops: the red and blue routes. Using two open-top double-deckers, the service is interworked so that buses complete a loop on one tour, then a loop on the other, allowing passengers who chose not to take advantage of the ‘hop-on, hop-off’ nature of the service to do both routes without changing buses.
The red route is what most would consider the ‘traditional’ city tour, showing aspects of the city, its history and its architecture. It also extends out to meet Jacobite Cruises’ Loch Ness tours at Dochgarroch Lock. The blue tour takes in some of the city’s waterfront and industrial side, on its way to and from its raison d’être, the battlefield at Culloden.
I boarded the 12.15 red route at Inverness bus station, where the two routes meet. The bus station itself dates from the early 200s, when it replaced an older facility on the same site. At the time of my visit, it appeared to be a small but busy place, with regular local, regional and national routes, along with a café and information centre, including a small tour office which promotes and sells tickets for D&E’s local coach tours as well as providing information on the open-top routes. On the day of my visit, it was manned by D&E coach driver Karen, who has been with the company for over 12 years: “It’s a great place to work,” Karen said. “Being a coach driver myself means I have lots of local knowledge of the places we visit, and we have had a lot of input from other drivers on where the tours should go.”
The city of Inverness lies at the mouth of the River Ness, from which its name is derived, and at the south west end of the Moray Firth, and is home to a steadily growing population, which has quadrupled in the last 200 years, reflecting its ongoing importance in the region. Although often overlooked as a destination in itself, it serves as a gateway to the wider Highland region.
Two buses are required for the service, and D&E normally uses a full open-top Wright-bodied Volvo, and a part open-top Alexander ALX400-bodied Trident, though for those less than ideal days the firm also has a closed-top double decker in fleet livery fitted with speakers to stand in if needed.
We left right on time, and although not a sight as such, I couldn’t help noticing a second hand book shop and making a note to pop in later. It is unfortunate that the route out of the bus station doesn’t give the great first impression a sightseeing operator might hope for, but on reaching the river front the view improves vastly.
Low branches
The first stop gives visitors chance to hop off and see Inverness Castle, though no one did, and we continued on our way towards the town’s war memorial, before retracing our steps and crossing over the river to pass by Inverness’ St Andrews Cathedral. The cathedral, part of the Scottish Episcopal Church, is notable for its square-topped spires, funding having run out during construction before they were finished.
The full open-top nature of the bus, along with its low front windscreen, made for some interesting moments as we passed below large trees along the west bank of the Ness, passengers on the nearside having to duck to avoid some of the lower-hanging branches.
Our next port of call gave travellers the opportunity to hop off and explore the botanic gardens, with its hot house, cactus house, and of course café. The local curling rink served as a reminder of one of Scotland’s traditional sports before we passed a large caravan site, no doubt a useful source of passengers for the route especially during the current ‘staycation’ boom.
Recorded commentary is provided with a suitably local accent, whilst cheery music fills the time in between. As we headed out onto the A82 towards Loch Ness to give passengers the chance to join one of the Jacobite cruises, we crossed an unusual twin bridge arrangement across a set of locks on the Caledonian Canal, presumably designed so that when one bridge is opened, the other is in use and vice versa, so that traffic flow is maintained. Our Volvo gave a good performance, though the journey was somewhat breezy on the exposed upper deck – thankfully there were no low branches here! The Dochgarroch Lock departure point for loch cruises seemed busy, with a number of people joining and leaving the tour at its stop in the well-filled car park. As we exited, I noted signs reminding drivers to drive on the left, a reminder of the normally high number of foreign tourists in these parts.
Our return to the city centre – Inverness having been a city since the year 2000 – saw our driver make an announcement to inform passengers wanting the blue tour to remain on board as we arrived at the bus station’s stance 6, and once again we met up with the other bus, a semi open-top ALX400.
Battlefield visit
Traffic made our departure this time somewhat difficult, and waiting for multiple phases of the traffic lights delayed us by a good few minutes on our way to Culloden. The climb out of the city was accompanied by the strong smell of the coniferous trees which lined a stretch of the road, and as we gained height, the widening view of the Moray Firth became gradually more impressive. Once again, the full open-top nature of the bus meant that those sat upstairs had plenty of wind in their hair on the way to the site of the battlefield. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to alight at Culloden, site of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite uprising and believed to be the last pitched battle fought on British soil. The terrain gave the larger British government forces under the leadership of Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the advantage and the Jacobites suffered a bloody defeat in a battle which lasted barely an hour. The tally of between 1,500 and 2,000 Jacobite soldiers killed or wounded was significantly larger than the 300 British government troops killed or injured, and led to the decision by the Jacobite leadership to disperse, bringing an end to the uprising.
Returning to the modern day, our trip took us back into Inverness via the A9, a fast road and possibly holder of the title of Scotland’s longest.
Passing the marina, a sign advertised cruises to see pods of bottlenose dolphins on the Firth, whilst the smell now was of the oil depot rather than nature, and two hours after leaving, we completed our figure-of-eight loop around the city, concluding not only the tour of Inverness but with the summer season now behind and leaves turning to autumnal golds, yellows and reds, also marking a conclusion to CBW’s series of features looking at open-top tours around the country this year.
With thanks to all the operators who have accommodated us and helped us to promote their tourist services in our ‘staycation’ features, in a year where the industry has faced many challenges and the tourist landscape has changed dramatically.
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