I am in a passenger terminal in Portsmouth as I write this ; in the middle of a so-far easy-going day. A photo-shoot is an ego soothing way to start any day and it was probably needed before we threw ourselves into a day of stnding hopelessly at the roadside as traffic passed us by. The photographer arrived at 9.30 in the morning, leaving us plenty of time to get lots of marvellous photos for our appearance in Saturday’s Advertiser; including action shots of Dad driving by on our little close.

The very first leg of our journey was a lift from my father to the M4/A34 services at Chieveley. From there our journey began in earnest.

Hitching is an artform at which, based on experiences so far, we excel . We set ourselves up with a makeshift whiteboard – a length of Magboard kindly donated by Mr Logo on Cricklade Road – and waited for a kindly driver to stop his car/lorry and give us a lift.

I can describe the feeling of unsuccessful hitching as what I imagine a beggar feels like as person after person passes him by unwilling or unable to spare him some change.

They all had the same guilty look on their face as they drove by in their heated vehicles .

However, it was after only ten minutes of soul-destroying hitching (and singing by the roadside) that our saviour came, and drove past. It took her getting out and shouting at us fifty yards down the road for us to finally realise she as offering us a lift.

The madwoman was from near Chichester and was on her way back home after picking up her daughter from university in Oxford. The girl , Megan, had friends who completed the Hitch only last year and so was sympathetic to our cause.

Jill was a delightful character, if a little eccentric. She had planned to drop us off in the outskirts of Portsmouth, but thanks to a combination of her kindness and her ditziness, ended up leaving us just outside the ferry port – thank you, Jill!

We ended up talking to Jill about everything from dog training to phobias of oranges. We were a little sad to see her leave us, but took heart that our first experience had been such a good one.

Next came the ferry trip. From the first stages of our planning we intended to take the crossing from Portsmouth to Le Havre that leaves England at 11 o’clock in the evening. Having arrived in Portsmouth at 12.30pm, we decided to see if we could get on to an earlier ferry.

Unfortunately, due to the money-grabbing nature of ferry operators, and the limitations of a meagre student budget, the overnight crossing was all we could afford. We reserved our seats and went off to explore the wonder that is Portsmouth.

Portsmouth in fact a rather sorry town. As we walked around it seemed that the whole place was in a time warp (one which, unfortunately, did not affect its inhabitants).

Notably, Portsmouth’s Sainsbury’s still has a yellow sign on the outside, and a banner inside reading "Where good food costs less".

After a coffee and buying presents for friends in Nantes, we headed back to the ferry port. Here we met two other groups of hitchers doing the same trip who would be on the same ferry crossing as us.

After a long wait (eating our shop-bought dinner of pasta, chicken and muffins) we finally embarked. We rejoined our friends from the ferry port on board. Our seats were hardly enough to spend the night on, so we set up our sleeping bags on the floor, accepting that we wouldn’t get too much sleep. Before we settled down for the night we played a few rounds of cards.