Monday 2 May 2011

New Forest Tour

Details are emerging of the changes to the New Forest Tour for the 2011 summer season.

The traditional and established Green New Forest Tour will enter service on the 25th June, using the existing BlueStar based Volvo B7TLs 408 and 409. The Green Tour operates from Lyndhurst, to Brockenhurst, Lymington, Beaulieu and Exbury at a frequency of one an hour, requiring two buses. 409 (HF05GGP) is pictured above on the 2008 New Forest Tour at Beaulieu.

Exciting news is the introduction of a new Red New Forest Tour - from Lyndhurst, to Burley, Ringwood, Fordingbridge, Cadnam and Ashurst. The Red Tour will also operate hourly, which mean two buses will probably be needed to cover the PVR.

This will presumably be operated from Wilts & Dorset's Ringwood depot - either using some of the convertible open-topper Volvo B7TLs at Poole, or using any ordinary closed top decker if that is not the case. The Red Tour will operate from 23rd July - a later start date than the green tour. Certainly, the "red tour" would suggest a bus in base-W&D livery with the appropriate graphics applied.

The tickets are a flat £12 adult fare, or £30 group (5 people) fare, valid on both routes, for two days, with the possibility of "hopping on" and "hopping off" as many times as you wish. 

Both routes converge on eachother at Lyndhurst, and although there have been no timetable details released yet for the Red Tour, presumably the tours would meet so passengers can mix and match. Common sense would suggest this would be the case anyway, but I have no evidence to back that up.

Should mean for an interesting summer- and given a good few sunny days some excellent time spent out in the forest photographing these two routes.

Map source: http://mediafiles.thedms.co.uk/Publication/NF/cms/pdf/new-forest-tour-info-map-2011.pdf

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