I can not remember whose idea it was that we should go and Hitch-Hike around France at the beginning of the Easter holidays, but off to France we went with our rucksacks on our backs and hoping, as it was a late Easter, for sunny weather, so we wouldn’t get too cold or wet.
The plan was to travel to Paris by train and then hitch-hike to the South Coast of France to stay anywhere near the the Mediterranean for about a week and then take about three days to return back to London.
As we were going to start the trip the day after we broke up from college, and travel directly to Paris from London, I had agreed with the manager of the hall of residence that I that I could leave my college books, lab coat and equipment in my room, where they would be safe until the start of the following term.
We had purchased our train tickets, for the return trip to Paris, in advance, using our student rail cards. John already had a passport but I had to purchase a one year passport from the local post office.
We had decided that we would pay individually for our own sleeping bags and rucksacks but would pay a half each for the tent.
John bought a regular nylon sleeping bag that was filled with nylon padding and had a zip that went from the opening of the bag right around the edge of the bag to the diagonally opposite corner. It was designed in this way so if you had two sleeping bags you could either be used as two separate sleeping bags, or they could be zipped together to make one double sleeping bag.
I bought a slightly more rugged sleeping bag, that was filled with duck down and where the zip went from the opening of the sleeping bag to about a third of the way down the middle of the front of the sleeping bag. It was however waterproof so could be used without a tent if necessary.
John already had a rucksack, that he had used when he was travelling back and forth from home to college.
I on the other hand, who had used two suitcases to travel back and forth to college, had to bay a new rucksack for the journey. I decided on buying an extra large metal framed rucksack, that had an extendable neck opening with large pockets on both sides.
I had decided to buy such a large rucksack, not because I intended to take a lot of luggage to France but rather in case were unable to put the tent up, I could sleep inside my sleeping bag inside the rucksack.
The one other thing that I had decided to purchase and take with me was a large quilted sky jacket that was both wind and waterproof.
We were due to catch the Paris train from Waterloo, on Saturday morning, which would have got us to Paris at about 2 O’clock in the afternoon, which would hopefully give us enough time to get out of Paris and Hitch-hiking on our way south.
We packed all of our clothes and provisions into our rucksacks with our sleeping bags attached to the outside of the bottom of the rucksack. The intention was to take it in turns carrying the tent, with it strapped to the top of our rucksack.
Once we had completed the packing we decided to go to the bar, with the intention of having a couple of drinks and say goodbye to all our friends that were going home the following day, then have an early night so we could wake up fresh the following morning and make an early start.
As with all good intentions things did not go to plan and we both ended up going to bed rather late and the worse for wear, which meant we woke up rather late the following day.
Just to make things worse, just as I was leaving my room, the hall of residence manager arrived and apologetically stated that I could no longer leave any of my college books or possessions in my room, as unbeknown to him the college had rented my room out for Easter to a Chinese student, who was attending a summer course at the Polytechnic.
This meant that I had to find somewhere else to store my belongs or I would have to take them with me to France. I spent the next hour looking for storage for my books and possessions and in the end I was able to store a few of my books and my lab equipment, in a couple of lockers in the physics lab, however, I did end up taking quite a few the books on a tour of France!