Leg One; My First Day of Hitching.

It began on a very very wet and cold morning, over 10 days ago, and what an incredible 10 days it's been. Its incredibly difficult to know where to begin, and the hardest part is working out what to leave out. I've met such a wide variety of amazing people, and already had so much fun that I have to say that despite all the abuse my friends will give me for using such a naff sounding line; life has never felt so rich.

Al had himself a lift sorted, which I unfortunately couldn't beg, borrow or steal my way onto, and so our adventure together actually began apart, but we were soon to be reunited.

-Leaving North Devon-

After a massive (and story worthy) breakfast, I finally left Instow on Saturday 23rd of June at 5.30 am, and began the long walk from Instow into Barnstaple. It was a far from glamorous start, with only mum to wave me off as I wondered out into the early morning rain. 500 metres down the road, with not a car to be heard, the rain pelting down and my arms already aching, it did cross my mind that I should possibly be questioning my sanity, however I was so happy to be moving, I had huge grin on my face and not a care in the world. (which in hindsight makes me realise why I didn't question my sanity. By most people's standards I think I would have been found wanting.)

After only a 40 minute walk, the first bus of the day cruised up to Lagoon View bus stop where I stood with my thumb out, and so I scored my first lift by talking the bus driver into giving me a lift to town. Although I had expected that the rain would help me hitch, I didn't really appreciate how useful it would be to my cause to be doing this for charity. This is because I can wear it as a badge of respectability that helps remove those first impressions that people might have about my axe-wielding-serial-killer potential.

The incredibly kind bus driver suggested I try my luck with his colleagues, but it was just past 6am and I had hardly slept the night before from the mixture of last minute bag packing and excitement, consequently I was itching to get hitching. So instead I slung on my bags and got walking out to Tesco to acquire some quality cardboard in order to make my first disposable sign.

In a highly random (and considering my circumstances) somewhat bizarre moment, I bumped into my secondary school maths teacher, the living legend Mr Pankhurst! Mr Pankhurst is an amazing teacher, and his influence as my maths teacher for 4 years has undoubtedly shaped the person I am today, so meeting him at 7 am on Saturday morning in Tesco, on my way to Istanbul was odd to say the least. I wish I had made more of that conversation, which is why I mention it here; but such was my puppy enthusiasm I literally ran around Tescos to get on the road!

-"I sure hope the road doesn't come to own me."-

More the fool me, as I finally got to the only road out of North Devon the heavens opened, literally in a monsoon sized cloud burst. Fortunately 3 (THREE!!!) car's all stopped within 10 seconds of one another, which greatly restored my faith in both North Devon's drivers, and also my quest.

My second lift, (and here I must apologise for it was not until my fourth or fifth lift that I learned to properly introduce myself to each driver) was a hero with some great tales from his travels!. Stuart (if that was your name..) had two great lessons for me. The first came from a song, and is the title of this section. I'm still not sure how i feel about those lyrics.

Secondly was the story of his 1990 (!) gap year and how five years later, two of his travel companions who had met abroad, got married in Canada. Everybody who had been on that trip made it to the wedding. For me this is a really touching example of the kind of friendships and relationships that you only form when travelling.

Stuart(?!) dropped me off at Tiverton Station, and unable to persuade the station master to give me a free ticket, I was back out to walking in the rain. Rather than truck all the way along the roads I asked in a nearby farmhouse if there was a shortcut across their fields to the motorway junction, I was assured there was, and so set out laden with bags across the muddy fields. It was at this stage, 4 hours since my journey began that I first began to talk to myself. The path to the motorway involved beating my way through nettles, vaulting a gate, climbing a barbed wire fence, before getting over a water filled ditch, and emerging like a wild-crazy-bush-man onto the side of the road. Next to me was a dead sheep. Brilliant.

Fortunately after escaping the death filled ditch, and dodging multiple lanes of high speed traffic I didn't have to wait long for the next lift. Another nameless saviour and my first white-van man, who not only had considerable hitching experience, had also hitched in Istanbul 30 years before! I just wish I'd had the chance to pick his brains more, but I will remember to look out for Trustafarians, not to let any dogs steal my food, and will watch out for that certain park in Paris!!!

-The Trip Receives it's first Religious Backing-

Around 11am, I finally got stuck, but fortunately for less than an hour before my brand new, huge "Charity Hitch" sign lured in a lift! (I had just ditched my first sign which had said simply "Services"..... mmm, selling or buying? glad I realised my mistake before waving that at anyone.)

I have to thank Morag and Karen for going well out of their way to take me a good distance on to the M4, and also for their very touching parting prayer. Although I am not a religious person at all, it was quite an unusual experience for me and it was my highlight of the first leg.

I felt I could say with pride that my trip was officially sanctioned by one diety, approved of by the big guy and i could quote the great line "I'm on a mission from God." (re-watch the Blues Brothers if you don't understand how cool this was for me! :-) I look forward to collecting a wide spectrum religious backings!!

-Spending too long colouring in your Hitching Sign with

a Permanent Marker gets you high.-

I didn't have to wait long at Junction 18 on the M4 before my next lift, which really surprised me as it came from Rebbecca,a single female driver in her awesome sports car! Surely the least likely profile of a person to pick up a hitcher ever!

To you Rebecca, I finally worked out this is why we had such a banter filled conversation, it wasn't just the lack of food, or the lack of sleep, but the fact that I'd just spent 20 minutes colouring in my sign with a permanent pen. I've learned my lesson, but throughly enjoyed our chat! For this journey, I'm afraid I was the story, and I think I talked even faster than usual about a huge range of topics, I hope I didn't scare her too much, but am reassured by the gift of a king-size-twix, and for the record, it was awesome.

- Some of the Best Things about Hitching So Far.-

Having just piled out of Rebecca's car(e) gratefully clutching my twix and incredibly self aware, I had one of what has become a series of ephiphanies about the wonders of hitch-hiking, this seems like a suitable point in my story to list a few of them.

Firstly as Rick (we'll come to him) so eloquently stated, as a hitcher you don't have to deal with arseholes, because arseholes don't pick up hitchers. By similar logic, people who do pick up hitchers are generous, kind and compassionate people, every single one with an interesting story or two to share. This has been without fail.

Secondly, you get to meet people you would never ever in a million years meet otherwise, and in someways this was the nicest part about my next 4 hitches.

Following on from this is the third point, that you get to learn things no classroom or book can ever teach. This was especially true of my next lift.

Fourthly, and this is something especially unique to hitching over every other form of travel, is that you get a proper sense of the distance you have travelled, you have to pay attention to where you are all the time, there isn't just a start and an end point to your journey, because you might have to get out at any moment and wait four hours for your next lift, and getting that lift can be hard work, there for you feel every mile is earned.

Finally, and what really struck me after leaving Rebecca was that you reinvent yourself with every ride. Which is both a very tiring thing, but occasionally a really good thing!!!

-Learning Something New-

As I mentioned, you learn alot hitching, and my Lift from Basingstoke to Newbury with Andy a British Airways pilot was fascinating, not only did I learn about the impossibilities of hitching a lift with an airline (but also got some very very useful tips on how I might do it in the future!), it was really interesting to talk about what its like to fly a jumbo, and the power of flying a huge plane that allows you to see the world spread out below you like an over sized atlas.

From Newbury services, I had a drink and didn't even have time to unfurl my sign before a lovely couple offered me a lift all the way to Gatwick! I hope they don't mind me saying I wouldn't have thought they would offer me a lift either, as they had the cleanest, nicest car, with a SatNav system that plotted my route from Instow to Athens! Fortunatly for me, their daughter had hitched from England to Morroco for charity (getting picked up by drug smugglers and nun's on the way... tough record to follow!) and so I managed to elicit some sympathy with my giant high-inducing "charity hitch" sign.

-Meeting Thom-

Finally, with no fanfare at all I arrived at Gatwick Airport, at 15.45, roughly ten hours after I had set out from Instow, pretty pleased with my first day's progress but shattered, I proceeded to build myself a fort out of chairs in Gatwick's arrival lounge and sleep for 3 hours whilst waiting for my friend Thom to arrive from Hungary. Thom had just flown back from several days cheap dental work from the mafia dentist's in Budapest, and it was great to have someone to share my day's adventure with as well as to have somebody to hitch with to Amsterdam, whilst i tried to catch up with Al! After a feast of Boots' out of date and consequently heavily reduced chicken cajun wraps, Thom was full of enthusiasm to get hitching, and even after a full day the novelty hadn't yet worn off for me... However we then proceeded to stand outside Gatwick airport for 5 hours trying, unsuccessfully to get a lift to anywhere east, in the hope we could either get to the coast or get to maidstone service station and hitch a lift over the channel. We scored some free coffee of a really nice girl, but no lifts, so we returned to the terminal, and I resigned ourselves to a night in the airport, whilst Thom continued to defiantly get us a lift.

Eventually we were forced to bed down at a restaurant near the toilets in Gatwicks south terminal, as even our pleading charisma found no takers at the easy jet desk....