Caithness stands by as Walliams and Co get ready to roll

Excitement of a sort reaches the far north of Scotland as Little Britain star David Walliams and his team of charity cycling celebrities prepare to ride to Land's End.

The team has arrived near John O'Groats ready for the 1,000 miles ahead. And, like Lawrence Dallaglio, they face a very chilly start to the Sport Relief ride. Scotland has been blasted by snow and ice, and the first few hundred miles should make for interesting Tweeting.

Walliams has been joined by luminaries including Jimmy Carr, Fearne Cotton, Miranda Hart, Russell Howard, Patrick Kielty and Davina McCall.

The team will be heading south from Groats at 9am today (March 1) for approximately 80 gruelling hours of pedalling before they reach their destination.

According to the John O Groat Courier, the celebrities are spending their last pain-free night in Wick, the closest town to John O'Groats. However, this scoop has been superseded on the paper's website by the story of a small brown trout that was caught on the first day of the salmon fishing season. Not a paper to be overly impressed by celebrities from down south, then...

Anyway, the journey will be captured for a documentary to be broadcast on the BBC in the run up to the Sport Relief weekend, which begins on Friday, March 19.

To sponsor the BT Sport Relief Million Pound Bike Ride, and help the bicycling celebrities reach their fundraising goal, go to www.sportrelief.com. You can also follow their progress through a GPS tracker here.