Setting off...Mon 4th August

At the starting point in John O'Groats.

We left JOG at 12 noon and got onto Cycle Route 1 towards Thurso. The roads are long and you can see for miles. The houses and farms are dotted about all at least 1/2 a mile from each other, reminds me of Spain or South Africa.

We passed through a place called Huna very soon after leaving and took great joy in saying the word 'Huna' in my best Scottish accent (try it, very satisfying)! We stopped after 11 miles for a banana and energy bar and to take a photo:

We reached a small place called Castletown where we stopped for lunch and the sun came out. We got chatting to an old man who used to be a long distance lorry driver and knew most towns in the British Isles, reeling off the tel area codes for each! He was very friendly and gave us a tenner towards our charity, which was very kind and unexpected.

Unfortunately after 17 miles my right knee started to hurt. I've had problems with it over the past few months, but with training and massage I was hoping it would be strong. Having cycled up 35miles Wrynose Pass and Hard knott Pass to Coniston only a fortnight before with no probs, I was confident that it would be ok, so quite annoyed that it started to hurt. We rested for a while and then decided to press on and get to Thurso. The wind was blowing quite strongly and the rain came in off the sea, so those last few miles to Thurso were pretty hard going - we had to pedal hard downhill!

At Thurso we found a campsite and set up camp, quickly escaping the wind and rain. Brenda, who runs the campsite, gave us back our campsite fee as a donation to our charity :)

I think I may need to rest my knee - this is going to be a harder challenge than I realised!