Worst/oddest journeys on site

[irnkrtn]

Now I don't know if its just me, but of the 15 or so journeys I've taken to Pilton over my life, a ridiculous number of them have involved bonkers outcomes. So much so my partner is puzzled by my panic that our tank of a campervan will break down on that specific journey. It is clearly a stress response.

SO, what are YOUR worst/oddest journeys to get on site?

In 2nd for me is the time we were making brilliant time down from Liverpool, long before the car parks opened at night. We decided to stop at 4am at Gloucester for a rest and to go to a famed truck stop I had found online. Truck stop cafe had shut down, and when we went to start up - clutch had gone. Luckily it was a parental car with gold standard RAC. Our driver was too young to drive a courtesy car, and because we were 4 young girls in the lovely RAC man's eyes, he expedited a taxi. It arrived within 30 minutes, and took us the entire way on site in pure luxury. I can't even remember how we got home! Stressful in the moment, but in reality completely jammy. I've been with the RAC ever since!

Winning at worst is the coach we took the year after, also from Liverpool. Spotting that the 7.30 departure was offered 4 to get on from the 8am, I shivvied some of our group over to join the earlier departure. What a winning move. Except the 8am coach with the rest of our group got on site at 3pm, and we got there.... at 1am Thursday. A mix of all main roads into the site having accidents plus a coach driver that didn't take the protected coach route in. Sunset in Street was a low point. Thankfully, at least our coach driver let people get beers from under the bus. Some lads got out their crates and passed them around for everyone and we had a lovely festival atmosphere. The coach in front, randomly my cousin's from Manchester, was not so lucky!  

[Rufus Gwertigan]

2004 a very dear friend drove us down in his Bedford home conversion. I have 5 kids and we took a friend of my daughter so there were 8 of us lolling around in the living space with no seats. I nodded off for a bit to wake to find one of my daughters had opened the door and was waving at a passing lorry driver. I must admit I did soil myself while I dragged her in. 

[al_coholic]

Think it was 2005. 6 hours from Bristol. 

[irnkrtn]

4 hours ago, Rufus Gwertigan said:

2004 a very dear friend drove us down in his Bedford home conversion. I have 5 kids and we took a friend of my daughter so there were 8 of us lolling around in the living space with no seats. I nodded off for a bit to wake to find one of my daughters had opened the door and was waving at a passing lorry driver. I must admit I did soil myself while I dragged her in. 

Good god!!!! I think I would have froze!

[4AssedMonkey]

Fairly military precision operation these days, but 2016 with the swampy ground conditions was memorable for all the wrong reasons.  We stopped in a B&B less than an hour from the site, set off about 4am to drive the last hour and get parked up.  With the stuck vehicles and mental queues it ended up being midday before we got parked and mid afternoon before we trudged to Dairy and got set up.  Fucking awful.

[matichin]

2009: 6 hours from leaving home to getting on site. Be fine if it wasn't coming from Bristol.

2010: after the previous year left the house crazy early, in the queue on the east side at 8am. Camped by 2pm after 6 hours queuing in the blazing sunshine.

 

Sometimes you just can't win.

[One Tonne Baby]

2013 - about 13 people in a minibus from Essex. Picked someone up in west London and one of the group was convinced that they dropped their stash at the petrol station but only realised it was gone an hour after we left. We ended up going back to the petrol station and then they found it in their pocket a mile before we got there!

with that, all the pick ups and the limited speed of a mini bus with 13 people in, I think it took about 7 hours or something crazy. Might have made this up but also think it hammered down in the queue into the site.

[4AssedMonkey]

Actually, our first drive down in 2009 was a fucker as well.  There were loads of serious motor accidents around so 2 of the 4 main routes into Pilton were effectively closed.  We left Sheffield about 6am, got off the M5 about 9:30 and then spent something nuts like 7 hours to go the last 30 miles.

[Watergirl]

5 hours ago, al_coholic said:

Think it was 2005. 6 hours from Bristol. 

Same. Not exactly sure of the year. There was some kind of traffic incident. I was on a bus from Temple Meads. It advanced so slowly that people started to get off the bus and walk to the nearest pub. I was on my own but shared suffering made everybody really friendly. It would take the bus about half an hour to catch up and the driver would blow the horn to alert us. It turned into a pub crawl. When we eventually arrived on site we were drunk and it was quite a job putting up tents.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Watergirl

[stuie]

I think my only bad time, out of the last 10 glastos was 2016 when it took 8 hours to get from Podimore services on the A303 to the car park due to the mud on site. 

We were definitely on the verge of giving up and turning round!

[irnkrtn]

1 hour ago, 4AssedMonkey said:

Actually, our first drive down in 2009 was a fucker as well.  There were loads of serious motor accidents around so 2 of the 4 main routes into Pilton were effectively closed.  We left Sheffield about 6am, got off the M5 about 9:30 and then spent something nuts like 7 hours to go the last 30 miles.

Same year! What a ride. 

[4AssedMonkey]

1 minute ago, irnkrtn said:

Same year! What a ride. 

There were 3 of us in the car.  the non-drivers (me inc.) started drinking Stella about 1pm.  Driver = not impressed....

[irnkrtn]

Just now, 4AssedMonkey said:

There were 3 of us in the car.  the non-drivers (me inc.) started drinking Stella about 1pm.  Driver = not impressed....

I at least hope none of you could feasibly have taken over the driving shift, and that the driver was suitably compensated with free cold beers later. We all had a whip round for our coach driver and I didn't see a soul drop less than a fiver in there. Lots of £20s too. 

[4AssedMonkey]

1 minute ago, irnkrtn said:

I at least hope none of you could feasibly have taken over the driving shift, and that the driver was suitably compensated with free cold beers later. We all had a whip round for our coach driver and I didn't see a soul drop less than a fiver in there. Lots of £20s too. 

We effectively made camp while he sat in a camp chair and mainlined cider. I call that even.

[moogster]

The year we came by train then coach. Lugging all camping gear from Sint Pancras to Victoria (I think) in the London tube has sort of prevented me from ever doing that ever since. So many stairs. I don't know how older or disabled folks deal can deal with that (unless it improved since as this was a bit more than 10 years ago)

[Tranquility of Solitude]

2016. Left Edinburgh 23:30 on the Tuesday night NE coach, scheduled to arrive 8am Wednesday. Got through gates 23:45 Wednesday night due to the traffic chaos that year. Absolute carnage..... nearly 24 hours on a coach but astounding how all that worry and stress just melted away when dawn broke the following morning.

[PassingCloud]

Not a journey to site but way from it. We always used to get a mini-bus load of us from Sheffield to the festival (this is end of the 90s/early 00s). Driver would drop us off (and he was more than for people getting battered/stoned en route)….

One year it broke down on the way to pick us up. Michael noticed us lounging around and had a chat, asked us if we needed a lift anywhere (what a legend). We ended up in an all day pub sesh somewhere close to the festival. No idea how we got there…could’ve been that ME arranged us a lift. 
Best end to the festival so far. 

[bexj]

The year that my friend offered to take 8 tents down in his campervan. I offered to go with him as I'd never been in his 1967 hippy VW and I fancied the dream of people tooting at us on the motorway. 

As we set off, his wife said as I climbed into the front seat.. "oh I usually sit in the back".. I thought nothing of it... Until my pilot started driving with his knees while rolling up! 

Anyway, this thing does about 50mph tops, lots of tooting on the motorway.. Especially when somewhere nr Gloucester i mentioned the strong smell of oil. Minutes later, the tooting intensified and i looked over my shoulder to see clouds of smoke piling out of the back of the van.  Luckily it wasn't an actual fire and with some gaffer tape, a hammer and a bottle of oil we were on our way.  We only had to stop twice more to top up the oil! 

And the queue of 8 people on Wednesday morning from cv west into the site, plus being 1st to pitch up in Paines was brilliant!! 

I got a lift home with someone else! 

[WestCountryGirl]

I know this experience was shared by others on here and has been mentioned before - but the most notable part of the 2016 slog in for me was getting out of my mate's car as we crawled through Glastonbury town to use the loo of a kind woman who had put up a sign outside of her house offering the use of her facilities.

It was shortly following this that I jumped out of mate's car again to go and check in on our friends a little way back in the queue. When I got out of their vehicle to rejoin my main ride, everyone sped up for about 100m and both cars disappeared around the corner - cue my trying-to-be-but-not-very-non-chalant trot to catch up with them...

Other fun games used to pass the time on that journey included "how many pringles can you fit in your mouth" and "what's the longest time you can take to eat a sandwich?"

Edited June 3, 2022 by WestCountryGirl

[Wilfko]

I had the worst car journey of my life leaving in 2019, I felt fresh and fine waking up monday morning, ate some breakfast and then everything changed.. the breakfast gave me food poisoning and I was stuck in the back of a car for 5 hours trying to get home whilst being sick to the point of suicide.. I could not escape that overwhelming need to vomit, and to add to that it have me the worst migraine ive ever suffered. Truly a harrowing experience i hope never to match.

[Larraht]

2016 - Heard the radio advice to delay our journey, which we did for a couple hours and then couldn't bare the waiting any more. Bad decision making. 

Took 9 hours from Plymouth and around 7 of those hours was just stuck getting through Glastonbury area. 

We were stuck in non-moving traffic for so long that we sat outside on the grass and played a few games of YO Sushi! It took forever! 

Eventually got to the site about 6pm. Trudged through the mud and before we even got to the gate my husbands knee gave in. Headed to medical tent - provided with a bit of physio, prescription for painkillers and some crutches (not much cop in mud!). He limped through the whole festival. We still had a great time, just not the best start! 

[irnkrtn]

1 hour ago, bexj said:

The year that my friend offered to take 8 tents down in his campervan. I offered to go with him as I'd never been in his 1967 hippy VW and I fancied the dream of people tooting at us on the motorway. 

As we set off, his wife said as I climbed into the front seat.. "oh I usually sit in the back".. I thought nothing of it... Until my pilot started driving with his knees while rolling up! 

Anyway, this thing does about 50mph tops, lots of tooting on the motorway.. Especially when somewhere nr Gloucester i mentioned the strong smell of oil. Minutes later, the tooting intensified and i looked over my shoulder to see clouds of smoke piling out of the back of the van.  Luckily it wasn't an actual fire and with some gaffer tape, a hammer and a bottle of oil we were on our way.  We only had to stop twice more to top up the oil! 

And the queue of 8 people on Wednesday morning from cv west into the site, plus being 1st to pitch up in Paines was brilliant!! 

I got a lift home with someone else! 

I love this!! They are bone rattlers at the best of time.