The RT absorbed the huge crowd - but with not many seats spare. I was lucky again, and obtained a downstairs seat at the front, looking out over the bonnet. We set off round the corner past the bus station, alongside the tram wires to West Croydon Station and down past Centrale to Reeves Corner. Other buses toiled up the other way, including DW53 on the 264 and another Cadet.
We wriggled out of Croydon through Waddon, and out along the "green buses" road past Beddington Park towards Carshalton and its ponds. I find this stretch of road, with its distinctive scenery and lack of change, induces strong memories of Green Rover days.
Beyond the ponds is the bend with huge brick walls and wrought iron gates - also unchanged and memory jerking. But it was Metrobus OmniCity 543 coming the other way on an X26 rather than a Greenline RF on the 725.
Sutton does not have the same nostalgic value, presumably because it has changed so much. We collected more passengers, filling the last remaining seats. We met London General's E59, an all Alexander Dennis Trident/E400 combination, on the 213.
Heading on west through Cheam past Nonsuch Park I was struck how early autumn has started, particularly with the chestnuts which were all golden and heavy-laden with conkers.
We continued into Epsom. The one-way system deflected us south away from the Clock Tower, but we did pick up some more passengers. We picked up another in Ashtead, so it was full and standing that RT604 gingerly made its descent into Leatherhead and went round the station loop to reach the day's venue.
There were plenty of buses already there. RT604 unloaded prior to seeking a parking space, and was followed in by Private Hire / GreenLine coach P3.
I changed cameras and went to see what had arrived...
All photos by Ian Smith. Click on most of them for a larger picture.
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Part 3: Leatherhead