Long Way Down

Back in 2004, my friend Charley Boorman and I

rode from London round to New York, east.

And we called the trip the Long Way Round .

Long Way Round has changed us all, I think.

You know, we made our dream come true,

and it's not very often in life that that happens.

Fundamentally, it just boils down to

hanging out on bikes is what, you know, Ewan and I love to do.

We did it! New York!

When we first met up in London

after we hadn't seen each other for a little while,

we started talking about Africa.

...we were on there in the rain.

It's something that Ewan and I feel very passionate about.

And it's that sort of last mad place in the world.

I did the Dakar Rally.

There is something about riding a bike through Africa

that is incredibly addictive.

But I think what turned it for Ewan was when we were in Dakar,

all those massive trucks and bikes

came screaming into the big holding bay at the end.

And I could see Ewan's eyes just lighting up,

and he just turned to me, and he just said,

"Charley, whatever happens, we're doing Long Way Down . That's it."

And I think we were only together for maybe 30 seconds or a minute

before we looked at Charley, he was fine, he had that big old smile.

Russ seemed fine. And it was, "We're doing this thing."

There was this flash of light that we were back again,

the four of us, doing another exciting project.

And so at that point, the trigger was pulled

and Long Way Down was happening.

We're gonna ride 15,000 miles through 18 countries.

From John O'Groats, through Europe and into Africa.

Across Libya to Egypt, following the Nile south into the Sudan.

Crossing the equator...

and over to the Skeleton Coast.

Arriving in Cape Town 85 days later.

So here's to Africa.

- Africa. - Long Way Down .

Today, Ewan and I have come to the Royal Geographical Society.

It was the first thing we ever did for Long Way Round .

And so today we thought we'd come back and look at some of their maps.

From the long way, we could go through this bit...

There's something incredible about the idea of going to tackle Africa

from top to toe.

First thing people think is Africa's one country,

and the second thing people think is that it's just full of AIDS.

And then the idea was...

What I'm really looking forward to is riding with Ewan again,

which will be really nice, having him by my side.

First thing we wanted to do was find a new base.

And we ended up finding this extraordinary place in Olympia.

Great. Nice to see you, Charley.

Ewan and I need to do a lot of work.

But it's gonna be our headquarters,

where we can prepare the bikes and trucks prior to our departure in May.

We wanted to go back to the old team.

So we had to find out if Claudio von Planta was free.

He was one of the cameramen that shot for Long Way Round .

And our friend Jimmy Simak, who's busy filming in New York.

- Hello! - Hello.

- Hiya, how are you? - I'm all right. How you doing?

- Are you married yet? - Not quite yet.

- Got a while. - How are you?

- Are you married yet? - No.

Any plans?

- When you ask me. - Okay.

This is our gym, Chris.

And as you can see, it's a work in progress.

Forty-five.

The focus of my work over the next ten weeks

is gonna be a lot of strength and conditioning work.

Because they're gonna endure really tough conditions.

They've got a lot of rough terrain, mountains, off-road.

So the focus of my work is gonna get them prepared for those kind of conditions.

To get ready for the Dakar,

- I did a lot of... - Did you do the Dakar?

- Yeah. Did I not tell you about the Dakar? - I'd forgotten all about that.

Different continent, you know, same people.

Dime a dozen, you know?

- So we should start with Tunisia. - Tunisia.

We take this motorway down here...

The A542 to the A15 onto this B72,

- to cut to P5. - Avoid the motorway.

- Down to Dougga. - To Dougga. Okay, cool.

I filmed there in the first Star Wars films,

and it was so hot.

We were in these air-conditioned makeup buses.

We'd sit in there, and we'd get all made-up,

and then we'd walk out...

The doors would open. We're ready.

They'd be, "Ready?" and go...

You'd walk out, and your makeup would just go...

All down your beige cloak.

"Just like Beggar's Canyon back home."

It was just great to be back with Charley and to hang out with him again,

'cause he just makes me laugh like a drain, you know?

And to ride a bike through Africa, that's just gonna be mad.

You know? All the countries that we're gonna go through.

What's going on?

The warehouse is really coming together.

We're getting it set up how we want.

You know, it's starting to fill up with our own bikes and cars and stuff.

Just that, really. Just bits of that.

We think the trip's gonna take us about two and a half to three months.

And one of our biggest problems will be the bureaucracy and the paperwork

centered around all the border crossings that we have to do.

I am now drowning in paperwork.

Asia's doing all the visas. Thank God.

I need to, basically, do 90 visa applications

to cover the eight members of crew and all the countries they're going to.

I'll feel better when we're halfway through,

and we've got some stamps and passports and everything.

"11:15, fine-tune your senses. Blindfold and barefoot walk."

Some of the areas they're going to are very much off the beaten track.

Which means they need to be able to learn to cope on their own.

Here we are, at the Shadowhawk survival experience...

where we will be surviving, generally surviving around.

"Shadowing over here, hawking over there."

"Peg it out."

It's good. It's nice to put a tent up in the forest. I'm really excited.

Like a boy, I'm excited. Whoo-hoo!

This is a tent I...

got in Australia when I did my very first ever motorcycle trip on my own.

So this tent is the proverbial very old friend.

Ewan... got his tent up before me.

- That's never happened before. - We're not competitive.

That's what makes our partnership so successful in these round-the-world trips,

it's that there's not an ounce of competitiveness in our relationship.

- Is there? - None.

I mean, the fact that I beat you putting my tent up just now

doesn't even irk you a little bit, does it?

No.

When you're in a survival situation...

you have to give over to the environment.

If you fight it, if you fight the desert, if you fight the rain, it becomes harder.

So the sooner you give over to it, the better.

Right. Do you guys have anything to cover your eyes with?

- My hat. - My hat.

Can you just cover your eyes and see how it goes?

See, Charley. All the way down, Charley. Past your nose.

- Can't see a thing. - Well, so is mine.

- Okay, how many fingers have I got up? - Three.

This one and those two.

Now, listen, someone's just laughing at me here.

Okay. Sit down. Take your shoes and boots off.

This is not a race.

This is what I'm talking about, slowing it right, right down, yeah,

and thinking where you are at the moment.

Well, I was using my hands to sort of sweep in front of me.

But there was moments where you were kind of aware of a tree being there

before you touched it.

And there was something quite surprising in the confidence that you got,

you know, moving through and not being able to see...

You guys were, without doubt,

out of probably in excess of a thousand people who have done this stuff,

- you were the fastest ever. - Really?

- Yeah. - Oh, that's cool.

In the spirit of no competition, whoo-hoo!

Gonna go back up there to build the improvised shelters.

I really liked the shelter-building.

I really took my time with it, you know?

Color-coding confuses your enemy.

And it also makes for a better sleep.

I tried to make the walls as, kind of,

as many sticks as I could along the sides,

and I covered it, and I took quite a lot of care with it.

That to support, yeah?

Basically, the way Charley's gone in,

everything's gotta be in, yeah?

If his head is sticking out...

I have a friend whose facial mask was taken off in one bite of a hyena.

His head was just sticking outside of a tent.

Yeah, it's not budging an inch.

He was painting a pretty bleak picture about camping in Africa, wasn't he?

Do you feel confident in there, Ewan? That it's structurally sound?

- Yes. - I'm gonna walk on it.

Okay.

What I'd ask you to do is just to cover your face

in case it collapses on you.

Ewan, where are you?

And then he just knocked it down, and that was really... annoying.

Shame, I put quite a lot of love into that thing, there.

Made me feel like a child, I was annoyed.

I felt like someone had come along and broken my toy.

Things got really negative,

and I found that when we were sitting round the campfire,

things just plummeted into this...

one horrific scenario after another.

This time of night is a really dangerous time of night, yeah?

So you can never really sit around a fire safely.

Max presented them in such a way that it was very negative.

By the end of it, I was terribly fearful of the whole thing.

I... I've never been scared about this trip before.

We might have to think about getting some armored plating

built into those rally suits, you know?

Stab-proof vests and stuff.

Oh, this is so cool.

I'm very excited about them doing another trip.

It's great for Charley.