A new entry in the top scenic bus routes chart

Tuesday 11th June 2024

Travelling by bus between Kendal and Penrith through the beautiful Lake District has always been an absolute delight. It’s definitely in the top ten scenic bus journeys, if not the top slot.

For many years there’ve been two options – the hugely popular route 555 from Kendal through the spine of the Lake District via Windermere, Ambleside and Grasmere to Keswick where a change to the X4/X5 takes passengers across to Penrith – a spectacular journey taking two hours 36 minutes including the change in Keswick.

The other great option available in summer months is to change from the 555 to route 508 in Windermere for the amazing ride over Kirkstone Pass, Patterdale and Pooley Bridge to Penrith taking two hours 38 minutes, if you time it right, so it’s pretty much the same as going via Keswick.

But now a third option is available and having given it a try last Monday I can confirm it’s up there with the other two itineraries offering the most amazing scenic delight. It comes highly recommended.

It’s all thanks to Bus Service Improvement Plan funding from Westmorland and Furness Council, which from 25th March, has seen Stagecoach operated route 563 from Penrith to Appleby and Kirkby Stephen extended across to Sedburgh and over to Kendal.

And oh my goodness, it’s now a stunner of a route.

But be warned. There are only limited journey options if you want to do the complete route from end to end – which funnily enough, is now the quickest option between Kendal and Penrith (by bus) taking two hours and 17 minutes.

There are only two through journeys on Mondays to Fridays. A morning departure from each end (Kendal 08:30 and Penrith 08:45) and a lunch time journey, both leaving each end at 13:05.

Each bus does a mid morning short return journey in between those journeys, either to Appleby (from Penrith) or to Sedbergh (from Kendal).

It’s a two bus operation; one based in Penrith and the other in Kendal and both do school journeys before and after, making for a very productive use of the two vehicles. It’s why the afternoon arrival in Penrith terminates slightly short of the town centre at the large Sainsbury’s at 15:15 so it can pick up from the nearby school.

Long term blog readers may recall I previously wrote about route 563 in April 2023 explaining how its new Saturday service began that month between Penrith and Kirkby Stephen having also seen the service reinstated between Penrith and Appleby on Mondays to Fridays in 2017 after it was withdrawn in 2016.

Now it continues all the way beyond Kirkby Stephen to Kendal on weekdays giving residents of Appleby, Brough, Kirkby Stephen and Sedbergh a welcome additional option of travelling through spectacular scenery to visit Kendal as well as providing a great route for scenic bus lovers.

I appreciate the route is outside the area covered, but it’s a great shame details weren’t included in Stagecoach’s hugely popular and widely distributed timetable booklet for The Lakes to give the service a high profile publicity boost as I doubt many visitors will find out about it.

It does get a brief mention as it falls off the map in the bottom right hand corner…

… but doesn’t feature in the “Explore beyond Kendal” options.

I had a ride on the 13:05 departure from Kendal on Monday last week and was quite impressed to be joined by five others, four of whom alighted in Sedbergh at 13:39 – and which must have one of England’s narrowest ‘high streets’ (it’s one way)…

… and the other passenger travelled all the way to Penrith, as I did. Two passengers boarded at Kirkby Thore, 19 minutes away from Penrith so for much of the journey – 81 minutes – there was just the two of us on board which was a shame.

We got slightly delayed during the journey as hundreds of Travellers were making their way to Appleby for the week long annual Horse Fair which began on Thursday.

The driver told me the route will avoid Appleby for the duration of the Fair as delays would be too severe which I can imagine with thousands attending.

If you like your Fells…

…route 563 along the A684/683 is definitely one to add to any ‘must do’ scenic bus rides list.

Roger French

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13 thoughts on “A new entry in the top scenic bus routes chart”

  1. Hi is there any chance of redoing Reading buses as they’ve gone from riches to Ruins with every bus on the wrong route, buses falling apart, buses breaking down constantly, buses cancelled at the last second, drivers arriving on time with the previous journey disappearing then reappearing 10 to 15 mins late, buses being terminated after a few stops, bus drivers purposely missing stops, buses deteriorating heavily on the inside and out & also Route liveried buses appearing on school routes half an hour after working the correct route instead of generic Livery buses and the Generic Livery Buses replacing the correct livered bus then after school work the correct liveried bus goes back to the depot then sits there for days at a time without turning a wheel and its not for maintenance its because of pure laziness

    Also Reading buses are getting new buses so it would be great to here your thoughts

    Your Readers

    Jamie Perry-Giddings Ash BeindThCamer, Danny Cooke & Danny Warman

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  2. Roger, It’s “Sedbergh” (pronounced Sed-buh) not Sedburgh. You got it right on your annotated map but then you got “Appleby-in-Westmorland “ English place names are a minefield!

    The quickest way by bus between Kendal and Penrith was the 106 that broadly followed the railway via Tebay and Shap but that disappeared as a through route when Cumbria CC was having one of its anti-bus moments and it’s a shame no money can apparently be found to reinstate it.

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  4. Bustimes suggests that there is only one bus working on the 563 today (and also on several days last week). If this is true, reliability on the route is a problem.

    Ian McNeil

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    1. Not all buses track correctly (and it’s not just a Stagecoach issue), so don’t rely on bustimes for confirmation of reliability.

      A. Nony Mouse

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      1. And to add to that, I’ve just gone onto the bustimes website and discovered that (according to bustimes) not only are there apparently no Stagecoach bus services in Penrith, Stagecoach Cumbria & NL only operates three school services and the 685 (except that timetable shows only the Stagecoach NE operated journeys)!

        In fairness to bustimes, Traveline is also barfing on requests for Stagecoach CNL journeys so it’s obviously a problem with the national database.

        A. Nony Mouse

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  5. In recent weeks I have travelled south from Penrith to Kendal on both the 106 and 563 using the lunchtime departures from Penrith.

    Both were very enjoyable but the 106 was a much friendlier trip with passengers travelling out of Penrith and others into Kendal.

    The driver appeared to know the majority of passengers and was handing out timetables and advising passengers of the recent retimings.

    We pulled up outside one school and all the children came to wave at the passengers who waved back.

    It was just after the Easter holiday and according to the driver all children at the school are provided with Easter eggs, either by the regular passengers or Cumbria Classic Coaches who operate the route , I am not sure which, just before Easter and selection boxes just before Christmas.

    A real community bus route although it doesn’t operate on a daily basis, just Tuesdays and Fridays I think.

    The 563 was a different kettle of fish with some passengers alighting at Kirkby Thore giving the driver much grief as he dropped them at the official bus stop rather than at their home which was off the bus route.

    One wonders where they had boarded there bus on the way to Penrith as it would have been the same Kendal based vehicle and driver.

    The opposite workings I assume are worked by Penrith depot both of which are Stagecoach operations.

    Speaking to the driver later we agreed that passengers who behaved like that were not worth providing a service for.

    The service I travelled on was fairly well supported as far as Appleby, probably because there had been two earlier trips into Penrith but from Appleby to Kendal I was the only passenger.

    Both routes I found to be excellent and thank you for your coverage Roger.

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  6. Certainly deserves to succeed as re-introducing a proper 5/6 day week service to areas all but abandoned by conventional bus services over the last few years. Whilst the brave Western Dales operations do their best, it does mean very limited offerings.

    One of the “secrets” of a rural service, or at least as near as you can get as few are viable, is to at least run them between two towns, rather than an “out and back” from one place meaning at least 50% of the mileage is effectively “dead”.

    Terence Uden

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  7. Try the 93 between Dartmouth and Kingsbridge in South Devon. Stunning and highly skilled drivers. Standing room on the one we were on from Kingsbridge just now.

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  8. Whilst the 563 may not appear in The Lakes Guide timetable, I am pleased to say it does appear in the Dale’s Area bus timetable booklet.

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  10. I travelled on the afternoon southbound from Penrith and, after a 5 minute late departure from Penrith station, for some reason the driver decided that he wanted to run 12 minutes late, including stopping at various places to wait “time” if he’d regained a couple of minutes.

    At Kirkby Stephen he then did his best to convince two waiting passengers that he didn’t go where they wanted – despite them holding return tickets!

    If there are attitude issues on the route I suspect that it’s unfortunately 50/50 as to who is at fault.

    A. Nony Mouse

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