Family ADVENTURE

HARRY JUDD, MELANIE BLATT, ALEX BERESFORD and BILLY MONGER on racing from Africa to the Arctic with a loved one

- VICTORIA WILSON

CELEBRITY RACE ACROSS THE WORLD NEW WEDNESDAY, 9PM, BBC1 REALITY

Celebs are used to travelling in luxury with staff smoothing all the details. However, this week, four famous faces - each joined by a family member - leave all that behind to compete in the first-ever Celebrity Race Across the World.

Taking part in the star-studded version of the popular BBC1 reality show are McFly drummer and 2011 Strictly winner Harry Judd and his mum Emma, All Saints singer Melanie Blatt and her mother Helene, TV weatherman Alex Beresford and his dad Noel, and racing driver Billy Monger and his sister Bonny.

Here, the stars tell us about their epic journey, starting in Marrakech, Morocco, and travelling on a tight budget across over 20 countries without using planes, the internet, credit cards or their mobile phones, before finishing 10,000km away in Tromsø, Norway...

HARRY JUDD AND MUM EMMA

From the age of 18, Harry Judd was touring the globe as the drummer for chart-topping boy band McFly, but this time he's on the road with his mother Emma.

'Mum is a very positive, upbeat person, so she's great company,' says Harry, 37, although the pair hit a stumbling block early on when miscommunication led to them missing a bus from Marrakech.

'I'd normally take the lead on a trip like this but it was important I knew when to step back. It was nice seeing Mum realise how capable she was.'

Harry admits that the hardest part of the challenge was being so far from home.

'When we got to the first checkpoint of Pinhão in Portugal, I was missing my wife Izzy and kids terribly,' he says. "To focus my mind, Mum gave me some tapestry and so ensued three weeks of obsessive stitching. It's the new rock 'n' roll!'