A UNIVERSITY student from Worcester certainly wasn’t twiddling her thumbs as she travelled 600 miles across Europe without spending a penny to raise £400 for charity.

Millie Morris, who is in her second year of a political science degree at Birmingham University, put her thumb to good use as she and a friend hitch-hiked from outside the university gates to San Sebastian in Spain.

Their adventure was part of a student rag week and generated nearly £10,000 for charities including Marie Curie, and the Brain Tumour Fund.

The aim was to travel as far as possible in 60 hours without using any money for transport.

Miss Morris, aged 19, from St Peter’s, travelled with 20-year-old Joe Hepburn, a fellow university student, from Ombersley, near Droitwich.

“We had a brilliant time,” she said. “You hear about how bad the world can be but when you actually get out there, people can be very kind.”

However, their journey didn’t start too well.

“After hitching down to Cherwell service station on the M40 we waited for two and a half hours in the blistering cold,” she explained. Things were thrown at us out of car windows a lot and many people slowed down and then drove off while shouting abuse.

“We bought our tickets for the cross Channel ferry because that was the only part of the journey we were allowed to pay for, but we had the worst night’s sleep ever on the floor of the boat.”

A lift from a former Birmingham University student took the pair down to Cognac, where they had a further problem.

“We were there for four hours. It was lovely and warm but no one wanted to give us a lift and our French was awful,” said Miss Morris.

“Then we had a scary experience with some truckers before a lovely French lady called Amelie picked us up and invited us to a party.

“Her English was not very good and our French was terrible, so we just smiled a lot and gave each other sweets. She took us all the way down to near the Spanish border. We arrived exhausted and a bit delirious.”

Finally, a friendly Portuguese trucker called Nigelle gave them a lift down to San Sebastian.

The return journey was quicker, however, as they flew back to Stanstead.