This bus literally ended up in the s*** after taking a wrong turn and careering into a mound of manure.
The driver of the single-decker ignored signs labelled ‘no-through road’ and ‘no unauthorised vehicles’ and ploughed down the potholed road.
But after driving a mile from the main road, he ran out of tarmac and slid into a muck heap which lay on private farmland.
After finding himself completely stuck, the driver had no other option but to knock on the door of the farmhouse and ask for help.
Farmer James Mizen, 50, said: “It has to be the most bizarre thing that has ever happened on this farm.
“I honestly don’t know how he ended up this far. We believe a road was closed and so he had been told to turn right by the sign for the turkeys.
“We still have our sign up from before Christmas so he must have thought ours was the one but he just kept going, and going, and going.”
The Stephensons single-decker is not believed to have been carrying passengers at the time of the incident in Thaxted, Essex, last week.
It was marked as being bound for Stansted Airport when it turned up at the farm, but soon changed its screen to ‘Not in Service’ after getting stuck.
Luckily, James was at home and he and his brother Chris used a tractor to winch the bus back on to hard ground and on with his route.
James, who runs the farm with his wife Karen, 49, said: “We managed to pull the bus off the grass and back on to an area of grass that wasn’t sloppy with mud.
“It certainly gave us a bit of excitement but we’re still baffled at how he managed it.
“It made no sense to us at all. He just ignored the no through road signs and no unauthorised vehicles signs at the entrance to the farmyard and carried on through the potholes and puddles.
“It doesn’t seem there was much common sense at play. The further he was getting the more awkward it was going to get for him.
“We don’t even like taking our tractor right down to the muck heap, never mind a commercial bus.”