Day ZERO

Caught napping ... is this a sign of things to come? A few celebratory Stellas and whiskies shared on the sleeper train to Edinburgh resulted in a close call. Caught in their whisky mist, Tim and Will slept through the wake up call and nearly got sent back to London.

Dad met us at the train station in the tour car, fully branded with our sponsors, Vinci, the Eve Appeal logo, and the task ahead: John o'Groats to Lands End. Watch out for a photo of the car .. it's huge! It really is straight out of Le Tour de France, except for the megaphone on the top! More on that to follow.

A further set back was averted with a sterling effort from Bob. The car was about to be ticketed as were illegally loading it up on a double red line - Dad stepped in to speak to the ticket inspector and instead of receiving a ticket, he came away with some more sponsorship! Things are looking up when you've been paid £12 to park!

We then headed north for the next six hours to Wick, punctuated by a clan visit to the Macpherson Museum in Newtonmore (www.clan-macpherson.org - shameless plug). We scoped the route. JOGLE's answer to Alpes D'Huez was quickly identified - the climb out of Wick to the Ord of Caithness (which features alongside Morden as a Lord of the Rings name, we're sure).

The journey was punctuated by a solid fry up (James confidently advised that Lance Armstrong preps for all his big tour days races with a good fry up). Will opted for double bacon for good measure, that should close the gap between him and Lance.

Having arrived in Wick to book into the hotel (and Bob having extracted another £10 sponsorship from the hotelier), we unpacked and headed north to do the short ride back from John o'Groats to Wick. This is when it started raining, horizontally driven by the wind into our faces. Obviously, the team were very positive: Things were looking up.

16 miles, four hot showers, five thai green curries and three hot chocolate puddings later, we're checking out.

Bring on the Ord of Caithness!