Carlisle; Saturday, 31 July, 2021

I had another early start to head over to the bus station for a day out exploring the Lake District. My first leg of the journey was to catch the 104 bus down to Penrith, with little of interest to see on that journey. I stayed on the bus through the centre of Penrith and out to the railway station by the castle to pick up my bus for the second leg.

The second leg of the journey was on the 508 bus, which started at Penrith station and then heads out into the Northern lakes. After leaving the station with just five of us on the bus, all with good seats, the next stop was back in town at the bus station where many people who got off the 104 earlier were waiting, which confirmed my choice of the risky 4 minute connection at the station over the town, by the time the bus left the centre of town it was full.

The first part of the journey is again not particularly interesting as the bus heads out of town, but once it’s off the main roads and into the smaller lanes of rural Cumbria the scenery opened up and became much more photogenic. The first major stop was at Pooley Bridge, located at the top of Ullswater, which the bus then ran alongside for the full length of the lake before reaching Patterdale at the Southern end of the lake. From Patterdale the bus then climbs up the Kirkstone Pass, the highest road pass in the lake district before heading back down the other side of the pass towards Windermere.

I hopped off the bus a couple of stops before the centre of Windermere and walked the short distance down the hill to the small town of Trout Beck Bridge where I picked up the 555 bus. The bus travelled up the remainder of Windermere, through Ambleside and then along the banks of Rydal Water, Grasmere and Thirlmere lakes before heading down into Keswick.

In Keswick I picked up the 77 bus, this service operates on a circular route (with 77A going the opposite way), on leaving Keswick the bus heads out to the town of Braithwaite and then climbs up the Whinlatter Pass and back down the other side into the villages of High Lorton and Low Lorton. Continuing on the bus runs alongside Crummock Water before heading into the Village of Buttermere. From the village it’s then out to run alongside the lake of the same name before reaching the bottom of the Honister Pass, the third and final pass of the day. Honister is one of the steepest passes in the country, and towards the top it was getting touch and go as to whether the bus was going to make it up, but at less than 10mph in the end, it did crest the top of the pass before heading back down again at a much higher speed.

At the bottom of the pass the bus headed through Seatoller, Borrowdale and Grange before heading up onto a road that runs in the hills high above Derwentwater, before finally descending back down to lake level and returning to Keswick, where I stopped for a very late lunch.

From Keswick it was onto the final bus of the day for the last leg of the journey back north to Carlisle. On leaving Keswick the bus ran alongside Bassenthwaite Lake for most of it’s length, marking the last lake of the day. North of Bassenthwaite and the countyside flattened down, and became much less dramatic as we headed out of the Lak District National Park, though up on the top deck of the bus there was one last big scenery shot as we turned onto the main road at Bothel with the hills of Scotland visible across the Solway firth.

From there it was a pretty standard ride back down into Carlisle. Having arrived back into the city centre I grabbed dinner before heading back to my hotel.