We continued up through the town, past the site of the old bus station and then southwards out of town. We eschewed the main road for the old road through North Holmwood, but perforce had to rejoin it south of the village. We roared southwards down the dual carriageway, through the scattered community of Mid Holmwood. There are occasional bus stops along here, with laybys to keep the buses safe from the fast traffic, so we pulled into one for another quick photo. Then we went on a little further, before pulling across to the right hand lane for the turn to reach South Holmwood Station. After our loop through South Holmwood we rejoined the main road - amazingly with a large double-gap in the main road traffic so that we got straight out!
It was not far now to Beare Green, where we turned off the highway onto rural byways more suited to our bus. We wound our way along to Newdigate, where stopped at the bus stop opposite the store, for photos and a blind change.
More country lanes wriggled away beneath us as we continued along to Parkgate, where we paused at the Surrey Oaks. No music gig today, but a couple of nice sports cars in the carpark. We continued on northwards back towards the North Downs. We met the route from Leigh and Reigate, and continued through Strood Green to the green at Brockham. There quite a few people wanted to take pictures, and the bus nearly emptied.
While they were busy I told Colin and Steve what I was intended to do, and walked down to the footbridge over the River Mole, beside the soldly-built brick road-bridge. After a few minutes RF679 came down from the green and carefully eased across the narrow bridge. I rejoined the bus at the north end of the bridge.
We went up to the A25 and turned west for the drive into Dorking. As we approached Pippbrook we met red RF406 heading to the roundabout with a 425 to Shere, and at the stop RTW75 was loading to return to Epsom, ahead of SNB257.
It turned out that this was their first trip round the 439, so I was roped in to provide some navigational pointers. We headed east out of Dorking, and found the right turning down to Brockham. We descended to Brockham Bridge, and squeezed across and up across the green. We paused briefly at the southbound stop.
We headed on south, up the long straight past Strood Green, then into the windy woody lanes through Parkgate. We paused at the Surrey Oaks to pick up some passengers, then wound our way on to Newdigate. There I failed to spot the right turn in time, and we had to reverse a few metres to take the road to Beare Green. We joined the A24 near the Duke's Head by the compulsory left turn and round the roundabout manoevre, then headed north, soon pulling off the dual carriageway to visit South Holmwood.
After a short break at South Holmwood we completed the loop back onto the main road. Just as we pulled on so GS62 was pulling off, on a short 449 working to Holmwood Common.
Claire drove on up the A24 towards Dorking. We turned off the main road over the hill into the town, passing SNB340 bound for Capel on the 414. When we reached the old Dorking bus garage we passed Travel London's ex-TGM Dart SLF 443 on the 465, waiting departure time in the bus lay-by that is the only vestige of the old bus station to remain.
We crawled round the Dorking one-way system onto the High Street, and east along to Pippbrook, where I alighted. Time to have something to eat, and have a look at the stalls.
All photos by Ian Smith. Click on most of them for a larger picture.
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Part 4
Part 6: Greenline to Hook