“Which way is it to the town centre?”

“Sadly it’s a full 4 miles to the city, sir”

“Nothing to be sad about!”, I thought, and set off into the cold darkness of morning on my way to Dublin.

After ninety minutes of walking, I still hadn’t warmed up and most shops were still closed. Not that I had any intention of spending money in them, anyway. I breakfasted on porridge outside a castle wall and continued my mindless wandering in an effort to explore and regain feeling in my limbs.

You can do a lot in Dublin without spending a penny. As, I’m sure, you can in most cities if you put your mind to it. Tourist Information gave me a list and I set about ticking off as many as time and my ankles, now a little sore from all the walking, would allow.

Chester Beatty Library, Trinity College, Dublin Castle, National Museum of Ireland, National Gallery of Ireland and the Hugh Lane Gallery all filled my day fruitfully before I stopped in a central park to boil up some water for the evening’s meal. A little tired and with a few hours before I needed to walk back to the port, I set about finding a decent pub for my sole expenditure in Ireland: a pint of Guinness.

Refreshed, I marched back through Grafton Street and spent some time enthralled by an enthusiastic band busking. Re-tracing my steps through the industrial strips of road between town and port, I was torn between my two options for this bed tonight: the early arrivals room, complete with linoleum floor, strip lighting and bathroom facilities; or my standard bivuouac. It might have been a cold night but I knew it might also be my last.

Although in many ways not an idyllic location, lying down, as I was, a mere twenty yards from the road, I was tucked away behind a building with a starry sky above me and the sea behind. I awoke the following morning to frost on my bivvy bag but had kept warm through the night in all of my clothes.

The ferry whisked me back to Holyhead where I struggled to find anywhere remotely practical for hitching until I realised that, of course, cars coming off the ferry would be perfect. And they were. A Hungarian truck driver on his regular route between Dublin and Germany drove me all the way to the M6 where a middle-aged man in a camper van carried me north on his way to pick up his daughter.

I was aiming for a friend’s house near Preston and an hour or so after starting the 10-mile march to her house, her car came by and saved me the effort. Another bed for the night and a home-cooked meal to boot. The next day we drove south back to London and, having stuck well within budget, I treated myself to the short train ride home and opened the front door with a smile.

Quite unlike me, rather than leaving my bag to fester for a week or until the next adventure, I began to unpack immediately. Amidst the damp camping kit that had served me so well, the shoes which had claim many more miles and the camera with new stories to tell, I was pleased to find inside my wallet thirty pounds in change.

“Ready?”

“Yes”, she replied, “No! Wait. What’s the plan? Are we actually swimming?”

“Full submersion. Anything else is a bonus”, I replied and ran excitedly into the sea.

I’m glad there was no one else around because I suspect our screaming would have caused no small amount of alarm. It was cold by any measure and we lasted some thirty seconds before sprinting back up the beach, our cries shifting from pain to joy without loss of volume.

We spent the afternoon walking along the recently finished Ceredigion Coastal Path watching the wild and craggy cliff faces meet a dark blue sea itself no less wild. The evening was whiled away listening to music in front of the fireplace and bashing out the occasional chord on a guitar. I was bought dinner in a local restaurant which felt like cheating – both within the rules of the game and as a friend – but which was consumed greedily with little protestation. The following morning we gorged on pancakes (OK, I gorged, everyone else just ate) and I was driven out of the village to resume my journey.

Not five minutes passed before I found myself heading north to Aberystwyth in an estate chauffered by a friendly couple in their fifties. On foot again, I set about hiking around the outskirts of the town to find a better hitching spot.

“I know you!”, I said happily when I recognised the lady stepping out of the driver’s side – the very same one who had dropped me at Aberystwyth an hour ago. They’d stopped for lunch and now were stopping for me. I couldn’t believe my luck but it carried me all the way to Llandudno where, sheltering at a petrol station I was swiftly ushered into the back of the jeep moments after swallowing the last mouthful of my afternoon’s cake.

Cruising across Anglesey where the new couple who ran a Health & Safety outfit lived, I mentioned that I did my undergraduate at University College London.

“Ah, another Gower Street boy, eh? Well, I wouldn’t leave a UCL lad in the valleys”, and with that, he drove me all the way to Holyhead Docks.

I’d looked up ferry prices from my friend’s house the day before and concluded that I couldn’t afford them. But I’d had my heart set on visiting Ireland – I’d never been there before and I thought that to reach Dublin on my tight budget would be a real coup – and still wanted to go. I’ve never been big on planning and I certainly didn’t want to spend my holiday sifting the internet for cheap tickets so I just decided to go to the port and see how I got on.

“So, if I get the cheap 24-hour ticket, I arrive at 6am and then have to catch the ferry back at 9am?”
“That’s right, sir”
“So I’d only have 3 hours in Ireland?”
“Er, no sir, 9am the following day”

There was no doubt about it, thirty-four English pounds was a large dent in the expedition budget but I felt it would be worth it as my one big expenditure. Buoyed by an already successful day, I peaked out the window at the fading light and instantly had another idea.

“Excuse me, could you point me in the direction of Holyhead Mountain?”

I was excited and walked at speed towards the grandly entitled hill which rises directly out of the town and Irish Sea. The sky grew darker as the pavements rose up the hill and slowly gave way to fields and foot paths. I trotted gingerly along the rocks to gain a perfect and deserted summit minutes before darkness won over.

I knew I shouldn’t have gone to M&S. As wonderful as the instant hit of savoury food had been yesterday in contrast to  morning of biscuit bingeing, I had now discovered a food stuff that was worse for transporting in a rucksack than bananas: houmous.

‘Mushy Chickpea Rucksack Surprise’ aside, I was feeling good. I wasn’t in the least bit bothered about having slept in a muddy ditch directly beneath the A48 surrounded by the discarded beer cans and crisp packets less than a hundred yards from a supermarket’s recycling centre and arose with renewed enthusiasm for my trip. I packed up my bivvy kit and headed into the 24-hour store for some more biscuits, an anti-scurvy treat of some apples and the chance to clean my teeth in their fine facilities.

My first hitch had been a great one. Not only were the young couple really friendly and generous enough to drive out of their way to drop me at the Severn Bridge, but they also seemed genuinely pleased to have picked someone up. Left at the services on the English side, I dined al fresco on a picnic bench beneath a neon sign advertising burgers.

As the sun withdrew from the sky, its absence was quickly filled with cloud and rain. I dressed appropriately at set about walking over the Severn. At the middle of the bridge, no land for a mile in either direction, the weather was pretty wild and quickly revealed the term “waterproof trousers” to be a misnomer. Not feeling too keen on going to bed wet, I decided to splurge a pound on a cup of tea and, more importantly, radiator access. The only customer in the quiet Chepstow restaurant, I covered every heated surface in wet clothes – jacket, socks, shoes, hat, gloves – and eked my beverage out as long as seemed reasonable.

Peeking out the window into darkness I was pleased to see an absence of silvery slivers falling and strode back out into the open air with crisp clothes and a warm fuzzy feeling. I scrambled off the road and found myself the aforementioned location of beauty to bed down for the night.

Now, scraping houmous from the inside of a plastic bag with my remaining pitta bread, I planned my day. A friend was arriving in Cardiff at 5pm that afternoon and had offered to drive me up to the west coast. The offer of a bed and shower were already tantalising after just two nights out so I made it my mission to reach the capital with speed.

Clambering over barriers and dodging traffic at a large roundabout, I set up camp on the slip road the M4 heading west and assumed the position. It was about fifteen or twenty minutes before a large black car pulled over.

“It must have been cold out there. I’ll put the heated seats on”, said Barry.

Oh, if you insist!

“Dave”, Barry said into his hands-free, “Something’s come up. I’m going to be fifteen minutes late”. He gave me a wink and proceeded past the Newport exit to drop me off at the perfect spot.

“I did a lot of hitching in my day. Used to be a hippy. Went all around India so I know what it’s like”

And he clearly did. My set-down point, he explained, gave me three options:

“Look, there’s a layby for you to flag cars down in, the bus comes past every few minutes or, if you fancy it, you can just walk all the way along that road to Cardiff. It’s probably about 10 or 15 miles from here”

I thanked him, plugged in my ear phones and went with option three.

This is a low point.

I’m entering the third hour (or is it fourth now?) of standing at the side of the road with a thumb out and a sign saying ‘Cardiff?’ – as optimistic as the expression on my face each time I car turns the corner.

This isn’t even an adventure, let alone a holiday. What the hell am I doing with my life?

It was a noble idea – not needing money to go on an expedition. “A hundred pounds and a rucksack is all you need!” I’d declared the day before as I set off from my front door without much of a plan. It had started well. I got straight on a bus for Heathrow and, carrying as I was, only £20 notes, the driver had no change so I got the ride for free. Admittedly karma caught up with me almost immediately when I had to buy another, more expensive ticket to get out of the airport because, apparently, you can’t walk. Still, it felt like progress.

But they’re laughing at me now. Not the metaphorical, removed “they”. No, I’m taking about the builders who are pointing down from the construction site above and laughing at me as they have been for some time.

This is a low.

I’d thought it was hitching in the dark that was working against me but having gone through the rigmarole of finding a quiet corner of a recreation ground to sleep and cooked my porridge in a playground the following morning, daylight was doing me no favours.

Thumb in, sign down and rucksack on. Time to take action.

I didn’t let the futility of walking in the direction of Wales from London register. It felt good to be moving and the effort of walking was far less than that of maintaining the positive mindset and facial expression required for hitching. Besides, I was freezing. I’d been roadside for a good hour or two and no amount of running on the spot could keep the blood flowing to my finger tips.

It was a cool winter’s day and the walk to Eton was a pleasant one. I turned right and made a beeline for the next sliproad onto the M4. I scrambled up and over the boundary to an A-road and walked sheepishly along its side – there was no way I could hitch on here. I marched onwards but, two roundabouts later, there was still no sign of a suitable hitching point and I ducked away from the road to lunch by a hotel car park, away from the drone of traffic. By “lunch”, I mean two bananas and half a packet of chocolate digestives – the contents of my cupboards emptied into my rucksack the afternoon before.

I was at a loss of what to do. I couldn’t possibly hitch here – no places to stop, too many junctions, roads too busy – I could keep walking but who was to say it was going to change anywhere between here and Cardiff, my first destination? Sitting still wasn’t an option and walking back too depressing so without any logical backing, I kept walking.

And what a place to walk!

Let me tell you that the A4 between Slough and Maidenhead has a lot to offer – Staples, Dixons, McDonalds, Sara Lee factory – and all of this on the wonderful convenience of a large strip of concrete with easy parking access. Arguably less designed for the pedestrian but who am I to complain? Headphones helped drown out the engines but I couldn’t quell the hunger in my stomach. I’d eaten more than enough biscuits for one day and there was not a supermarket in sight. Marks & Spencer didn’t count and corner shops were unlikely to fit my budget.

I arrived at another junction with the M4 in a slight daze. Marching on empty, continual noise in my ears and a mild confusion as to what exactly I was trying to achieve on my week off work besides a headache. I filled up my water bottle in a pub, put my rucksack down at the side of the road ready to have another go at getting a ride. I reached into my pocket for the pen to write on my whiteboard but it wasn’t there. I checked the other pocket then the same one again. I looked on the floor, opened my pack and rummaged through all the bags. It wasn’t there but I had an idea where it might be – 4 miles back along the A4 where I’d stopped for lunch and used it to write a message on the sign and take a photo.

No problem. I’ll just go back to Staples and get a new one (I told you the A4 had a lot to offer). A hit for the accounts but it would hamper my hitching and ruin the photo theme for the trip without one. And so I set about walking back down my new favourite road. How far back was Staples? I couldn’t quite work it out until I arrived back at my lunch spot in a cold, frantic sweat some 90-minutes later. There was no Staples. I’d imagined it and walked back the entire length. The A4 is rubbish.

At least my pen was there. The most pathetic of rewards for three hours of utterly wasted life. I almost couldn’t bear to do it but my glucose deprived brain raised no alternatives and so, for the third and, I sincerely hoped, last time that afternoon/ever, I trundled along the grey bliss of the A4. (I even caved and went to M&S to buy the cheapest savoury combo I could find – reduced pitta and houmous).

Right. Here we go. This is it.

I’m slightly concerned about being picked up by the police but this has got to be the spot. The road goes directly to the M4 and 50% of that traffic will be going my way. There’s a perfect layby for someone to pull over in and I’m safely tucked behind a barrier. Sign up, thumb out. Surely God is going to cut me a break?

Moments later a tiny black Volkswagen with the back seat down pulls over behind me.

“Hi”, I offer hesitantly, looking around me in disbelief, “Are you stopping for me!?”