As expected, we did not sleep. Discouraged not a jot, we set about finding another witless mug to take us onwards . Our prayers were answered by a bearded Frenchman by the name of Olivier.

Olivier lived in England but was in every other respect your stereotypical Frenchman. He spoke ardently of his right to work only 35 hours a week, he smoked, he religiously set his cruise control to at least 10km/h above the speed limit and made no effort to hide his feelings on any subject of contention.

He dropped us off in Rennes, where we ate lunch before attempting to hitch to Nantes, which is only an hour away ; a short distance compared to the 4 hour journey for which Olivier endured our company.

It was harder than we thought , particularly because of the lack of good hitching positions. One must consider a multitude of factors – direction, speed, frequency, availability of somewhere to stop, visibility, safety and, we found out, who is likely to pass that way; we found ourselves outside an out-of-town shopping centre in the early afternoon – most cars that passed by were occupied by a lone woman.

We know we’re not dangerous, but who can blame them for not stopping to pick up two strangers despite the wind and rain?

After about 1 1/2 hours, Patrick came to our rescue. He was on his way to Nantes to visit friends and spoke for much of the journey: he is a gendarme and spoke about his job and its complicated political implications, as well as giving us practical information about Nantes and its history.

He dropped us right in the centre of town and we promptly made our way to the Young People’s Information Centre, where we were informed that two of the four campsites in a around Nantes were open all year round, and were given the location of the youth hostel . We went to the nearest campsite, only to discover that although it was open, they couldn’t let us pitch our tent there until the 1st April – next week!

The man in the campsite, like everyone we encountered in Nantes, was very nice and very helpful. He phoned the other open campsite and their situation was the same.

We then commenced a mighty trek to find a cheap hotel, and after travelling miles and dismissing the youth hostel on multiple grounds, we got to the stage where we no longer cared, we just wanted a semi-decent bed. We found one in the form of a 1 star hotel near the château, dumped our stuff and went in search of food. We found pizza. Unfortunately, we also found an Irish bar where we spend 12€ on two uninspiring drinks. Several lessons were learnt today!