To begin!

And so this epic adventure begins starting with a monsoon and ending in near perfect evening sunshine. To start let me tell you about John O' Groats. At 8am on a Sunday nothing is open no fanfare no nothing in fact probably the best bit was leaving! Which looking at it is probably the same day in day out. So at around 8.30 the s s intrepid and I began our descent, uphill! Shortly afterwards I had cause to fashion (the soon to be patented) portable waterproof shoe covers from 2 asda bags. I'll tell you one thing I got numerous admiring glances in tescos in wick when I went for breakfast. The day has been somewhat slow due to intrepid and I making a rather too close acquaintance with the caithness wind. My nose and face are currently rather flushed from our meeting. Our travels continued as we were passed by a myriad of motor bikes motor homes etc. It is a bleak area with long stretchs of nothing interspersed with odd hamlets and piles of stones from Ancient times tarted up to be tourist attractions. The sea however is never far from view and the oil rigs can often be seen in the distance. By around midday the monsoon had abated and watery sunshine gave way to a splendid evening. My legs are tender now from the extra battles with the wind and I did doubt whether i would make it before the food stopped being served but a full fat meal currently lines my stomach as I Blog as Imade it with 3/4 of an hour to spare. For the stats people awaiting a late entry in the sweep the stats for day one are as follows: distance 71.68 miles time cycling 8.53.58 av speed 8.0mph max speed 31.5mph tomorrow nessie awaits yippee!!