6 months of planning and....

Well, a suprising start to the trip. Our arrival at John O'Groats led to a buzz of activity. Having been in the car for 11 hours, we darted to the toilets to perform our Wonder woman impressions and change into lycra. The toilet attendant (20p to go the loo at John O'Groats) advised us that the signpost was not there as it was owned by the photographer and he took it down as it used to get nicked.

We improvised in front of a cafe sign.

We then met some guys who were driving to Lands End in an Ocado van in 24 hours. He went to the back of his van "I have something for the kids" he said. Offering two model Ocado vans to Euan and Neve he advised these were now "as rare as hen's teeth". Jon asked him if he could have one for his two kids....and two more hen's teeth arrived.

We set off. 17 miles, bit of a headwind, amazing scenery. Lovely.

We arrived into Wick at 9am to be received by a bagpipe band marching up the street. I have no idea how they knew we were coming.

We then proceeded to weave in between Robin Hood, the Grim Reaper, the bloke from the GoCompare adverts most of whom were walking backwards with a camera in their hands. Turns out last night was the inaugural Wick gala - imagine a Mardi Gras in the Highlands. Alcohol had been consumed. One suspects alcohol had started to be consumed at roughly the time we left Alton. Most people appeared disappointed in our costumes.

Fine athletes that we are, we had a chinese takeaway and that was the end of day 0.

Today, we're off to Inverness. 100 or so miles and as we had to drive the whole route here yesterday, I know we have two long 13% climbs and one 10% climb.

Plenty of photos have been taken - i'll get some up this evening.

Brendan