We both arrived in Sheffield the night before. After going out for a cracking carvery meal, knowing that it could well be our best meal for a few days, we went home.

No discussion as to how we were going to go about this had been had. So we had a think. We came up with the idea that there would be way too many people rushing to the station to get on any trains going south. With 150 people leaving uni at once we thought this would be a bad idea. Our decision was to hitch. This meant we needed cardboard. What a good job it was that we had kept 5 empty crates of Stella sat on top of the beer fridge.

I hunted down a marker pen and then I cut the boxes into nice sizes, this meant we had plenty of card. Recycling in action!!

By now it was about midnight and neither of us had packed. We needed to be at the Arts Tower by 7am ready to go, didn't look like we were going to get as much sleep as we really should've been doing, ah well!

We attempted to get up at about 5:30am to give us a fighting chance of actually getting to the Art Tower at 7am.

We both made sure to put on our long-johns and a few layers since we had no idea where we'd end up and how cold it'd be. Once ready we headed down to the Arts Tower. Got there just after 7am. I honestly don't think Matt had seen this hour of the day before. It wasn't pretty.

The arts tower was full of Bummit people waiting to get their hoodies and goodie bags. Looking around there was an array of bags. People with tiny rucksacks (no idea how the managed), people with normal sized bags (sensible), then there was me with my 100 litre bag. It must've been the biggest there, and without doubt the heaviest, and wouldn't I know about it over the next two weeks.

It was at this point when it started setting in what we were actually doing. 1800 miles on £15, were we retarded?

At 8am, once everyone had picked up their stuff, everyone got outside for a group photo and off we went. The adventure began

As decided last night, we were going to hitch. As everyone got near the IC people seemed to be heading right, towards the city and station, we thought we'd be different, so left we went. With it being the start we were eager beavers, the first lorry driver I saw on the way down I asked where he was going, as it happened he was going nowhere, he hadn't unloaded, nevermind. We carried on walking until we got to the junction with the Sheffield Parkway dual carriageway. There were already a few other Bummiters on the corner trying to get hitches. They were fools. No chance of getting lifts where they were. We moved up to the actual carriageway where there was space to pull over, dropped our bags and wrote a sign for "M1S". Literally within a minute of having the sign out someone pulled over. We ran to the car, a Ford Fiesta, somehow forced our bags into it. The guy was from Rotherham and offered to drop us at the M1 motorway junction. He had a deal. Nice guy, he'd hitchhiked before in the past so that was why he pulled over for us.

We arrived at the Motorway junction at about 8:50am, when we arrived there was already a team of the 3 there. We dropped our bags further down slip road. We knew we had a clear advantage of getting a lift since there was one less of us.

After standing with our signs for a short while there was a disaster. Matt needed a dump. Good job I'd brought a 4 pack of top quality loo roll. Off he went down the embankment to do his business. Whilst he was off having what he claims to be the worst poo of his life I got us a hitch. A chap in a big Mercedes van pulled over. He was going to Leicester, not too far but most definitely far enough. I chucked our bags in the back and we waited a minute for Matt to finish off and off we went. He was delivering onions, we learnt all about onions for the next hour or so. Big ones, small ones, pickled ones, British ones, shallots, peeled, chopped, diced and sliced. You name it about onions, we found out. Gripping stuff, honestly.

So, we arrived at Leicester Forest East services at about half 10. Not bad progress for our first ever lot of hitchhiking. When we arrived there were a few other teams that had got to the same services and they all seemed to manage to get lifts out. They were being pro-active by asking people. We were being lazy and just standing with our "M1S" and "Charity Hitchhike" signs. After getting nowhere for about 1 1/2 hours we decided to start asking people.

After wandering the car park for about 10 minutes and being given some bottles of Vimto from a kind passer by a big white van pulled up in the car park. We ventured over to ask the driver where he was going. It turned out to be a Geordie chap. We asked and he said Folkstone. Well, our jaws dropped and we got a bit excited telling him that we wanted to get to Dover to cross the channel, massive result. He wanted to get something to eat so whilst he was sorting something in his van we waited in the service station. He came into the service station and said to us in his barely understandable accent "This must be your lucky day lads, I'm going to Belgium". Well, not sure there are words to describe how happy we were at this. We were going to Belgium off only our third hitch, unbelievable.

The chap came back and off we went. After chatting for a while we discovered he was called Will and he was a plastering contractor. He worked near Gent for 3 weeks out of every 4. It was a stroke of complete luck that we got a hitch with him because it wasn't his usual time to be going to Belgium. With it being Easter Monday it had meant the day he was going over had changed, amazing luck for us. We discovered that he hated students, drank coffee out of a filthy mug and had a bit of a whiff about him. Not that we cared, we were off to Belgium!

Will had already paid for his van to go on the Eurotunnel so that was our route across the channel. We'd expected getting a hitch onto a ferry and off again could've been hard. We didn't even have to worry about any of that, no ferries for us, superfast Eurotunnel instead!

Before we knew it we were in France, an hour ahead, driving on the wrong side of the road and at a cash and carry in Calais. It felt damn good. This is where one of the strangest moments, for me, on Bummit happened. When we drove into the car park there was a coach and I spotted the logo on the top of a guy outside the coach. It was a coach full of people from uni on a sports tour, very random, but amusing at the same time. Then something else happened, another coach pulled up. This time it was for Sedgley Park Rugby Club and the coach was a Hollins Travel coach from Bury, this was crazy stuff.

Once Will had stocked up on wine and Stella we got on the road. Before we knew it we were out of France and into Belgium. This hitchhiking lark was feeling pretty damn easy. Will decided the best place to drop us was at Gent services on the E40, so he did. We got our stuff out of his van, shook his hand, and off he went. I wrote out a sign for "E40 Bruxelles" with the intention to get a hitch there and find a hostel. We were about to start asking people for lifts when I spotted an English number plate in the car park. There was nothing to lose so I jogged over and asked the guy where he was going. The answer was Bavaria. Well, yet again we couldn't believe our luck. We asked for a ride to at least Brussels, he agreed.

It turned out he was a PT in the RAF and was stationed in Bavaria. The reason he was in Belgium was because he was on his way back from Eastbourne after picking up a new car. He was filling his car with a petrol can because he got cheap (40p/litre) fuel in Germany. He'd filled up a few cans so he didn't have to pay for fuel anywhere else, good idea! He decided that he didn't mind taking us to Koln. We couldn't believe this, we were going to be in Germany before midnight, amazing stuff.

Before we knew it we were across the border, filling up in Aachen and Koln bound. We decided that we'd go as far as he'd take us so he ended up dropping us at a big service station in a place called Koblenz just before midnight. All in all we'd travelled about 580 miles with relative ease. We very were happy to say the least!

We got a bite to eat and sat in the big comfy chairs in the service station. The kind lady running the restaurant said we could sleep there for the night if we wanted to, damn right we did. Off to sleep we went.

It turned out that we had got the furthest by midnight out of all the teams!

After getting about 4 hours sleep on and off we woke properly at around 5amish to snow covering everything as far as the eye could see. It was quite surreal. The amazement of the snow wore off quite quickly when we realised we could be stood outside in the cold for quite a while, and that we were.

It turns out we had wrote some really stupid things on signs, looking to go to cities and roads which were way too far away for people to be bothering with, no wonder people were giving us funny looks. The best one was definitely to Erfurt, that place was hours away!

After a few hours of getting nowhere we had a wander and decided to change our plan, it was time to go back on ourselves. That didn't feel great but it was definitely the best plan. We were right next to the E61 which went to Koln, so that's what we asked for. Not long after we got a hitch. A pretty large guy who said he was soldier. We came to the conclusion that he was a former soldier. He was kind enough to drop us at a service station to the West of Koln. It was this guy who got us right back in the game after hours of getting nowhere.

We arrived at about 11:45am so decided it was lunch time. Burger King it was! As was the theme in Europe of it costing to go to the loo, this place was no different. For once we were happy to pay the 50cents to use the loo because they were most definitely the best toilets ever. Self cleaning toilet seats, we were in awe.

These services weren't the best few hours of our lives. Snow and a bit of rain whilst getting nowhere, no one wanted to take us anywhere along the E40, how rude of them! Until a car pulled up after a few hours of waiting. It was a man, his wife and their baby son (the wife was stunning). They were going to Gummersbach which was quite a distance past Koln, in the right direction. How we managed to get in the car is beyond me, but we did, and off we went. They dropped us at a service station about 80km along the road. We were very grateful but the guy told us it was going to be dark in a few hours. We weren't impressed since the services were pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Things were looking a bit bleak.

It was at this point that another hero turned up. His name was Sven, he most definitely came from heaven. He pulled up and as ever we used our standard "Getting a Hitch Procedure". This involved saying, "You speak English????", to which he said, "Very little". He wasn't lying, he knew next to no English. The next part of the procedure was to frantically point at the map in the Bummit Bible. We were pointing at Leipzig and the E40, he was point past Leipzig along the E40, that only meant one thing, he was going all the way along the E40 and was happy to take us. At this point the feeling of happiness was definitely larger than when we got our lift from Will to Gent, not as much distance, but absolute perfection.

Sven went to get a drink and then we went off on our way. Leipzig bound we were. When on our way Matt managed to drag up some GCSE German to ask what Sven's name was. Sven was impressed, Matt was proud, I was proud, it was most definitely a moment.

I shall give you an idea of what the E40 is like in Germany. It pretty much goes all the way across Germany from West to East, it also includes some good chunks of Autobahn. Yes, you read that right, Autobahn. Sven had a few years old Mercedes Estate. Sven quite liked speed. Sven hit 140mph.

After driving for about 3 1/2 hours with very little conversation because our German was most definitely worse than Sven's English, and Sven's English was shocking, Sven dropped in what seemed to be an ideal position to get picked up south of Leipzig.

At this point we quite possibly made a bit of a mistake. Instead of trying to get a hitch straight away we decided to eat. Hard decision but damn we were hungry. It was gone 8pm and we hadn't eaten since the Burger King in the morning. So, eat we did. It seems German service station food is a million times better than the crap they serve in the UK, and a damn sight cheaper.

After eating we tried and tried and tried to get a hitch. We were having no luck at all. We had an offer from a trucker going to Leipzig for one of us, no good but appreciated nonetheless. We had an offer of a lift to Jena and to get a hostel there. We were being very cheap and didn't want to stay in a hostel. Maybe also a mistake since we later found out trains were easy to jump in Germany. So Gera to Leipzig would've been very easy in the morning. Another guy pulled over, told us he was going to Leipzig, but decided his car was too full. It was pretty much empty and there was more than enough room for us, not even a tight squeeze, we could've had a party in the back of his car. Tosser.

Midnight approached fast and the amount of vehicles coming through the station was getting very low. It was then we gave up and went inside. This is where the lack of sleep really started to show. I managed to have a few 10 minute power naps over the next few hours, each time I instantly started having extremely vivid dreams and then waking up not knowing where I was. Very odd. Matt kept having the same, but whilst being awake, even more odd. Matt was having some crazy daydreams earlier in the day whilst in the car with Sven, whilst a German person was on the radio in the car Matt was hearing an English conversation.

Lack of Sleep = Bad News.

Matt didn't sleep at all that night, he just played cards with himself, no idea how he managed it, but he did.

At about 5am we decided to go and try hitching again because it was getting light.

After a few more hours of trying we were getting nowhere. I went back inside the service station to check which local towns and cities had train stations, it seemed quite a few, so they were now an option. It turns out they didn't need to be because when I came back out Matt was chucking out bags into the back of car. It was 7am and he'd got us a hitch to Leipzig, God we were happy.

It turns out the kind woman who was giving us a lift wasn't actually going to Leipzig, she was going to Halle, nearby but not that near. This didn't bother Matt, he pretty much told her she was dropping us off in Leipzig. She dropped us off at Leipzig Train Station at about 8:30am. We'd made it well early and we hadn't spent a penny, pretty impressive if you ask me!

Being the stubborn bastards we are we thought getting the tram to the Hostel was a cop out. How stupid we were. We ended up walking in the wrong direction and it turned out we then had 3 miles to walk, we did, it took ages. Eventually we got to the Hostel, got ripped off for some stupid Hostel membership cards, but who cares, we were there and we could have a shower. I hadn't taken my shoes off since I put them on in Sheffield, it was damn good to get them off. Thankfully the shower was sensational, I may have cried if it was bad.

When we were getting ready another team came into our room after finding out some other Bummiters had arrived. They were Team Unlikely. What a nice team they were. We all decided to go out for some food and ended up at the quite amazing Leipzig Train Station again. Bockwurst all round! After a mooch around Leipzig we headed back to the Hostel, grabbed a few beers and got ready to go out.

After missing the tram to get back into the centre of Leipzig to go to the Students Union Bar we ended up getting a taxi. What a fun taxi ride that was. Our driver was Wolfgang, what an absolute legend. He had no problems with us being loud and British, and definitely no problems when I asked if the bar played any "Music-Pop"!

We got there, we drank lots, we had McDonalds afterwards, we came home and had a well deserved sleep.