Saturday 29th June. Day 0: London to John O Groats

So, after researching various modes of travel to John o' Groats, the overnight sleeper from Euston to Inverness won the day. £75 with no charge for the bike and a single cabin included - or so I thought. From an imagination conjuring scenes from James Bond (jaws & Roger Moore fighting it out) to the reality of a reclining seat opposite to an extremely talkative guy from Elgin, overly so - well into the early hours of Sat morning.

For all you TalkTalk readers, this guy Stuart was ecstatic over his TT Youview box - absolutely raved about the 7 day catch up, so a very happy customer in the Highlands.

It's sat evening and just pulling into Wick which leaves a 14 mile cycle to the hotel in JOG (light rain unfortunately), a meal and a few beers planned with a guy I met on the train - Craig- doing the same thing.

Nice ride from wick on flat roads - bright, drizzling and skylarks singing high above keeping me company. You can always hear them but hard to see them. I was expecting JOG to be a one horse town and here it was! I stopped too quickly to take this pic and with the weight of the back panniers promptly fell off the bike into a hedge. Anyway, here's the horse.