The miserable mystery tour
A teenager would be excused for having a touch of road rage after the coach she took took eight hours to travel 70 miles - an average of 8.75 mph.
Nisha Sivalingam booked a National Express coach to take her from Milton Keynes to the Reading Festival, paying £31 for an open ticket meaning she could pick any time for a Sunday return.
But after getting on board, the 17-year-old quickly realised the coach seemed to heading on a road to nowhere.
The A-level student, from Shenley Church End, said: “I went with six other friends and it was all our fist time to Reading. The simplest way to travelling there, we thought, was by coach.
“So we booked an open return ticket for 1.15pm Thursday, due at Reading at 3.15pm. It was an absolute disaster - the bus arrived in Milton Keynes two hours late, travelled for about an hour then had to ‘legally’ take a 40 minute break.
“We travelled for a further 40 minutes just to find out there had been a sat nav failure which meant we had travelling in completely the wrong direction and had to double back on ourselves.
She kept her dad, Vijay, informed of her progress. He told the Citizen: “She called at about 6pm saying she had only just passed St Albans.”
But when the coach finally arrived, the problems didn’t end. Nisha added: “It was roughly 9pm - it was ridiculous. It had rained that day so we ended up trekking through the muddiest swamp-like tracks in total darkness.
“I was really stressed because we still had to find a campsite, for all seven of us and it was impossible to see more than 10 metres in front and even if we could most campsites were already full.”
They finally settled for an isolated site more than an hour away from the nearest toilet and made the most of the event until the return trip on Sunday.
Nisha said: “With our open ticket National Express failed to disclose that people who booked for a specific time got priority over us. So we didn’t get a place on the coach to Milton Keynes, and in the end had to call a friend’s family for help.”
Joy Williams, a spokesman for National Express, confirmed Nisha’s account, adding: “We sincerely apologise for the severe delay to the service and we will refund the cost of the coach tickets.
“We hope this goes some way to apologise. The coaches to Reading Festival took nearly 5500 cars off the road but traffic is inevitable due to the sheer numbers of people travelling.”
According to Google Maps, the three main routes from Milton Keynes to Reading can involve the M1, M25, M4 and B4009 - or a combination of the roads, with a total distance ranging from 52.8 to 84.1 miles, which should take no more than two hours to complete.
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Weather for Milton Keynes
Friday 25 May 2012
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