(Back row, left to right) Edwina Lesbirel, Tracey Ford, Aimee Lawson and front row, left to right, Ben Greening, James Penney and BBC Guernsey presenter Gary Burgess were all thrown together in an effort to get home when their flight from Manchester was cancelled on Monday night. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 0587836)

IT WAS the road trip none of them had been expecting. When fog resulted in the cancellation of their flight home from Manchester, a group of islanders rallied together, determined to get back.

Gary Burgess, 32, a presenter for BBC Guernsey, and his partner James Penney, 30, had been due to fly back to Guernsey with Aurigny at 7.10pm. They were called to the information desk and sent to gate 20, where they stayed for 45 minutes.

They teamed up with fellow passengers Aimee Lawson, 22, a fourth-year medical student at Nottingham University, Edwina Lesbirel, 51, who was returning from holiday, and 37-year-old Tracey Ford and her 12-year-old son, Ben Greening.

The group was directed to the Lufthansa desk, where passengers assumed they would be booked onto flights the following day. ‘They told us there were five seats left on the evening flight and that the next seats available after that were on Wednesday, but we couldn’t book those – we were told to call the following day,’ he said.

With nowhere to stay and no chance of getting home, the new friends put their heads together to come up with a plan. ‘We went to the car-rental desk and said six strangers wanted to hire a minibus and take a road trip through the night. They thought we were mad, but we had a couple of strong cups of coffee and headed off,’ said Mr Burgess.

They set off at 10.30pm and arrived in Weymouth at 3am. They stopped in a car park for 40 winks and at 6am were waiting outside McDonalds for breakfast before heading to the ferry.