Over the May Day bank holiday weekend, I'm off to Wolverhampton to see a friend run her racehorse in a point to point, celebrate her birthday, eat tapas and generally hang out.

When I came to book my train ticket over the Internet, going through my usual route via Gatwick and Reading to avoid London in the rush hour and possible inflated prices, I found all the cheap deals and even the standard saver return fares gone.

A visit to Eastbourne railway station later to double check, and I found myself facing paying for two single tickets, which would have cost me in the region of £150.

Last year I went to Wolverhampton I lucked out on cheap fares and got two singles for a total of something like £35, so by this point my jaw was hanging open.

£150 for a train fare that doesn't run through London! Do I cancel my visit, do I look into getting the coach from Victoria, or do I bite the bullet as an infrequent driver and ask to borrow my mother's car?

After an hour of searching, including the dash to the station, entering Clapham Junction in the 'via' section of the search on National Rail Enquiries brought me an unexpected result.

It showed Eastbourne to Victoria, then the Underground – during the rush hour on the outward journey – to Euston and then on to Wolverhampton, for the standard saver return of £60.20. In the past when I have requested that route, on a normal weekend too, I've been given hugely inflated prices – which I thought was to deter people from travelling through the capital at peak times.

Out came my debit card and suddenly I was a happy bunny again.

It seems I'd fallen into the trap of leaving things a little too late. The gentleman I spoke to at the railway station told me if I had booked last week, I would have got some cheaper fares.

Given the Bank Holiday and the fact we've had such a lousy spring so far, everybody wants that weekend away to enjoy themselves, and I don't blame them.

Next time I'm going to plan things a bit earlier and hopefully enjoy some of the really good fare prices I've managed to catch in the past on my preferred route. Having said that, if no affordable fares were available anywhere for the times I had to travel, there could well have been one more car on the road.

And we're encouraged by the government to use public transport!