Hitchhike to Morocco for Charity!

Early start! We got dropped off at a roundabout just down the M1 in high spirits The high spirits lasted all of 10 seconds until we realised that we had left our purpose made white-board in the car! Doh! Un phased by the first set back of many, we decided to try just thumbing lifts before the motorway junction. After an hour or so, we realised that the majority of traffic was headed North, rather than South, so headed towards Wakefield a bit. We found a piece of white plastic which made a good sign – white-board number 2! We decided that we had to get to the service station a mile down the motorway, so we headed there.

The service station was dead, apart from some gypsies trying to sell people assorted junk that they no doubt claimed was ‘good luck’ or something. After a short wait, we bagged our first lift! It was a large yellow truck, driven by Paul. He was a ledge, and took us as far a service between Sheffield and Nottingham. Time to get on with hitching again!

We tried various trucks and cars, but had no luck with any of them. We clocked a large double decker bus entering the service station so headed over to inquire! As it turned out, it was a private bus hired out by an Asian family for a wedding – everyone was dressed up like the Mafia or something…! Even with all of our charm, we could not get a lift with them, which was a shame, as wedding crashing sounded like fun!

Eventually we netted our second lift – with another lorry – score! Ed was travelling to pick up some egg counting equipment (as you do…) just South of Birmingham. It was a bit off the route we wanted to take, but we took the offer! He was a top bloke, who clearly hated being a truck driver and enjoyed the company. Sarah had a definite hot spot for him!

The service station Ed dropped us at was dead, so we grabbed some lunch and then headed out to the car park… no luck at all. Everyone was being very miserable! After a few hours of aimlessly wandering about the car parks, we met Anne. I love Anne. Her Toyota Yaris was small, to say the least, but we all squeezed in with our bags and headed off to Bristol. As it turned out, Anne was one of the most interesting people I have ever met. She had been crushed by a car, lived through cancer, and had famous members of family. She went out of her way to drop us in a good spot to try to get a lift to Portsmouth. Soon after being dropped we were sat in a van bound for Portsmouth…!

After wandering about a bit we bought some awful fish and chips (couldn’t believe it – how can you buy bad fish and chips in Portsmouth?!) and headed for the ferry port. £21 handed over, and a 3 hour wait, we were on the ferry!