Many of our regular summer tourist services are returning to the towns and cities over the coming weeks. Some are returning after a few years break and others area as strong as ever.
Now – back in April, we had already seen the plans for Yellow Buses and the fact they merged last years Buster Beach Bus services into a single route. Rather than go through all the old post about changes in the town though, the Yellow Bus website is actually quite well laid out and probably a better place to grab the timetable and map.
We have also remarked on the Southern Vectis return of the Open Topper. The Breezer network is in full swing (except this weekend due to the Isle of Wight Festival) and we were talking about it back in March.
The South Downs Rambler
After a few years of being missing, the South Downs Rambler returns between Winchester and Petersfield from Sunday 10th July.
This is a Sunday & Bank Holiday only service which runs past the Science Centre at No Man’s Land, West & East Meon. The three round trips are provided by Bluestar and is funded by the East Hampshire Community Rail Partnership.. You can pick up the bus at Petersfield and Winchester railway stations which provides a perfect time to also sample a rail replacement bus…. or hopefully not.
If you are more generally interested in the work done by the East Hampshire Community Rail Partnership, then you can check out a large number of leaflets they have produced here and the South Downs Rambler information (and fares) here.
The New Forest Tour
morebus and Bluestar’s New Forest Tour also returns next weekend (25 June).
The collaboration between the New Forest National Park Authority and the GoAhead Group always seems to be incredibly popular. Why would you not want to tour around the New Forest on an open top bus for the day; and if you use it to get to Brockenhurst then I can recommend The Huntsman for lunch.
This year the usual three routes around the New Forest are available with a range of open top (and sometimes closed top) buses. There are departures all day on each of the routes, although the frequnecy is a bit haphazard with anything between 60 and 80 minutes.
I can not remember if they previously did ths, but positioning trips will run to and from Totton on the Green route at each end of the day. Presumably this means that some of the buses will run out of the depoton Salisbury Road with others based at morebus in Lymington.
I have not really had the opportunity to sample the New Forest Tour over recent years, but along with the Waterside Wanderer, I hope this year is the opporuntiy that I get to do that. Full details of the New Forest tour are this year hosted on the morebus wesite and you can find full details here.
So Much Choice
If you want an open top bus ride this year. Don’t forget, we also have the open top buses in Weymouth on the X52 and 501, morebus Breezers across Bournemouth, Poole and Swanage as well.


Dont forget to mention the new shuttle bus “2RN” between Wareham Stn and Arne nature reserve. See https://ectcharity.co.uk/services/areas/dorset/local_bus_services
Hi Tony,
I did forget, sorry. I had planned to come down and try and get a ride before posting about it. Thanks for the reminder!