Long Way Down (2007) s01e02 Episode Script

1
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.
We did it! New York!
It's Ewan and I living out a dream
on motorbikes.
Shortly after we got back,
we decided it was definitely something
that we wanted to do again.
We started talking about Africa.
And we're calling this trip Long Way Down.
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.
We're gonna give these guys video cameras,
and they'll also have cameras
with microphones on their crash helmets,
so they can film as they're riding along.
There's a bit of tarmac.
Look at that!
A third motorcycle will travel with them,
and on that motorcycle will be Claudio,
a cameraman.
In addition, Russ and I will travel in
two 4x4s with Jimmy, another cameraman,
Dai, our medic, and Jim,
a cameraman who will help with security.
We'll be filming the guys
from the vehicles,
linking up with them at borders.
But otherwise,
the motorcycles will be on their own.
Got sun on my face ♪
Sleeping rough on the road ♪
I'll tell you all about it ♪
When I get home ♪
Comin' round to meet you ♪
The long way down ♪
This is John O'Groats.
Hey, guys.
Don't want to fall off right now.
That would be not good.
My darling, it's me.
Say hello to my wife!
Hello!
That's all the crowd at John O'Groats.
It gave me an opportunity to ride
with my brother and my father,
and that doesn't happen very often.
My brother organized the kind of route
down through Scotland,
and it was lovely to share a little bit
of it, at least, with him.
- Good to get going, right?
- It'd be nice to get going.
I just need I think I just need
to put an hour under my belt
- just to calm down.
- Calm down.
We have to go to Cape Town.
Here we go.
I feel a little emotional, I must say,
about the whole thing.
Hopefully everything will be all right.
Wonder what it will feel like
to be riding into Cape Town
on the last day.
My heart.
Somehow it always ends up
being trickier than you think.
But now we've got 800-plus miles
to London to test everything out
before we leave the UK for Africa.
We're just on our way, down towards
down towards
Where am I going?
It's a really nice road, A9,
and then down through Glencoe.
"In memory of the officers
and men of the commandos
who died in the Second World War.
This country was their training ground."
It's a good statue.
Awesome.
This is where Ewan grew up.
Kinda cool, really.
I'm limping along here
with my dad in front of me,
and I know my dad's all worried
about being slow,
and he said, "Oh, I'm holding
everyone up," which he's not.
The truth of the matter is, it's just nice
to be bimbling along behind my dad.
I'm looking forward to seeing my mom.
We're having breakfast this morning,
and I suppose at that point
I was quite aware
of the scale of the journey,
and I said, "I feel like I need my mommy."
- How exciting, yeah.
- Yeah.
- It's just exciting. It's lovely.
- Quite a long day. So sorry we're late.
Hi, Nana!
How are you?
- You had a wee glass
- Champagne, yes.
Yes, exactly.
We'll put the burgers on there.
I didn't have a huge sense of
that we were going
from John O'Groats to Cape Town.
Once we got going I just felt like
I was out for a ride with my mates.
Does that make me a bad person?
Fantastically.
It was really good, really great.
I never went above
70 miles an hour the whole day.
Well, I would get
your speedometer checked.
It's just a wonderful thing
that Charley and Ewan do, I think.
I mean, it's amazing.
Yes, please explain.
The motorbike thing
surprised me initially,
the fact that he had one and that
he was so passionate about them.
That surprised me.
"Could you look at my ticket, please?"
I would prefer he wasn't doing it at all.
It's a worry, I mean,
but there's nothing you can do about it.
- See you later.
- You take care too, Charley.
- Thanks for all your help.
- Oh, no problem.
- I really appreciate it. We will.
- And you look after yourself.
And going from there we're going down
to Ewan's charity CHAS,
so we're gonna have a look around there
and see what's going on there.
We're gonna raise money for UNICEF,
for CHAS,
and for Riders for Health on this trip.
And so I promised we would drop in
on the kids at Robin House,
which is the new hospice here in Scotland.
Hello.
Hello!
I haven't seen Robin House
since it's been open.
He doesn't turns out not such
a good Jedi in the end, doesn't he?
What they do is they, is they're here
to give parents and the children a break,
you know, and a really nice weekend
or however long it be.
Yes, it's very good fun, yeah.
I like doing all the fighting.
You know the sword fighting is great fun.
But the sadder side of things
is that parents can also bring
their child here to die,
- which is inconceivable to me.
- Yeah.
And I've met parents who've been
in that, you know,
just lost their kids here and stuff.
This is our rainbow room which is just
like any other children's bedroom,
a normal bed here,
and this is where the child is laid out
to rest after he or she has died.
They've given an incredible amount
of counseling,
and they're very, very good at that.
So they help the parents go through
that process, which is too much.
They know that they're not gonna
make it into adults,
so that must be incredibly hard.
So they live they live with it?
That's why the whole timing of the funeral
is very important to them
because, you know, they can own that
and they say
that they know exactly
what's going to happen.
Great. Okay.
I was lucky I had 30 years
of memories of my sister.
And, you know, a lot of these kids won't,
you know, won't have 30 days of memories.
So, I find it quite heartbreaking.
It was quite difficult. I was actually
fighting back the tears
in that room.
Especially when they spoke about
how they make
casts of hands and stuff like that.
And one of the things that I did,
that we did
with Telsche when she died,
we made a cast of her hands.
And she was laid out for a few days
out on her bed and stuff like that.
Here they can actually
It's the only place in the hospice
where there'll be the name of every single
child that's ever visited Robin House.
We had 14 bereavements in the past year.
You just got that line.
Look, she's trying to batter us with it,
isn't she?
What an incredible place.
You know, you see kids who have been
looked at really well looked after,
and parents who are able to relax
and take a bit of a break
from, you know, the, like, 24-hour care
of looking after their child.
Have you seen some of the stuff he's done?
- No. No.
- You haven't seen anything he's done?
You don't have to pay
to bring people here, you know.
It's all
It's purely by people's donations
that the families get to benefit,
you know, so
So we'll see how much we can raise
this time on Long Way Down.
The important thing to us
is the whole family's here.
The brothers, sisters, mom, dad,
so you can actually create
a family environment
and somewhere that's special, so
The actual facilities are lovely.
But what's more important is the care
that's actually given
for the whole family.
She was here a couple of weeks ago
for respite.
- Nice.
- We like it. She loves it.
It seems really colorful
and really vibrant.
Yeah, it's not a sad place.
It's a very, very happy place.
Shove it on. There we go.
How's that?
You're a smiler, aren't you? Wee smiler.
Yes.
It's a place that's full of color
and life, in fact.
And that's what it's for, it's for
these kids to have a really good time.
And so you come away feeling really good
and then so many days later you
when you reflect on it,
it sometimes hits you.
To live knowing
that you're gonna lose your child
is something that most of us
couldn't possibly imagine.
It certainly, in my mind, puts
a certain perspective on things and
Oh, God, what an amazing place.
We're riding over to the Holy Isle.
Straight ahead there
Hold on, hang on, let me clean this
is the island, and there it is!
We're here! We're here!
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant riding.
The more corners that come our way,
the more you want more corners
to come your way, you know?
It's amazing that castle, isn't it?
Bloody hell.
How did they build that out there?
- How did they do that?
- And why?
Well, just to keep their eye out at sea,
in case of invaders.
A great start to the trip.
It's lovely to be with Charley.
I don't really have a huge sense
of, you know,
the scale of the journey yet.
I just feel like I'm on a ride
with my mates.
And that's exactly what I am.
I am on a ride with my mates.
Look at that.
I come back from these trips
with, like, 350 pictures of my bike.
With slightly different backgrounds.
It's like therapy sitting on this bike.
The breeze is fantastic.
A state of deep relaxation.
They both came running out
and waving their arms,
so it was very clear they recognized us.
It wasn't just some random wave.
- Hello.
- Hello there.
- How are you?
- Not too bad, Mr. McGregor.
- Nice to meet you.
- Obviously you're lost.
No, no, we were just doing
a show up round there.
- All right.
- Are you gonna get a kettle on then?
- Sure.
- We'll come have a cup of tea.
- Are you milk and two?
- Milk and two, yes, please.
Milk and two. And Ewan?
- Black with nothing.
- Black with nothing. And Claudio?
- Just black and one sugar.
- Black and one. Right.
Where are we? Well, let's ask Dave,
our new friend Dave.
Over here that's Cessford Castle.
It's the ancestral home
for the Ker family.
This land is all owned by
the Duke of Roxburghe in Kelso.
- That's an amazing view you've got.
- We love it too.
And when it's like this, it's fantastic.
Sometimes it's so misty and horrible
you can't even see the castle.
- Yeah.
- That's Ewan's.
- Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
- There you go.
Charley, from his Dakar bikes,
all had different colored mudguards
at the front.
- So we could tell
- And it was just a way
of being able to identify who was who.
So Charley suggested we did it
to the beaks of these.
And so we suddenly thought, "Oh,
we can go for kind of an African-y feel
- on the sides," you know?
- Yeah.
After some time on the bike I get a cramp.
Ever since I've had the crash
in the Dakar,
it seems to get
sort of a muscle cramp here,
and it runs across here
after about 20 minutes of riding.
It just sits there.
- Bye.
- Bye.
That was so lovely. It was lovely.
It was the first encounter of its type
on this trip, you know,
where we meet someone and
You know, in Mongolia they would
bring us in their tent
and give us the food they had to eat,
and here it was Dave and Claire giving us
a cup of tea. It was fantastic.
That was very pleasant to meet them.
They're both BMW riders, the two of them.
There's no rush.
I mean, the temptation already
is to, like,
"Oh, my God, we gotta get on."
You think, well, there's no real rush,
there's nothing to get on for.
So just enjoy it.
We're actually the Scotland,
the stone of Scotland's there.
- Well, we are in no man's land.
- And the England stone is here,
so we're actually So, Ewan, hold on.
- You all right, mate?
- That's what it's all about, you see?
- The union.
- The union.
- See ya.
- See ya, man.
I know I love Scotland, but that's
taking things to extremes, isn't it?
The Scottish earplugs,
for Christ's sake.
All right, you're from Scotland.
We understand, we get that part now.
Jesus.
We've aimed for Hadrian's Wall,
and the boys have just turned up.
They got a bit delayed.
Through miscommunications.
- And so Scotland was this way.
- Yeah.
So this is now England, but the
'Cause the border's
actually further north now, but
So this is Scotland up here,
and that's England down there.
And it's raining in Scotland,
and it's sunny in England.
Sadly I'd have to say I've seen, like,
anti-English feeling in Scotland,
but I've never seen anti-Scottish feeling
in England.
Look, Ewan, here's
This is a little daisy chain that I made
- for the English-Scottish
- The union.
- Our union of England and Scotland.
- Thanks, mate. Cheers.
That's very kind.
I really have to crack on.
Hurry up, guys.
Since Charley's injuries in the Dakar,
I think he's having trouble
with his right hand. Look.
You can notice he's holding the throttle
open with his left hand
across the handlebar
and then resting his right hand.
So, he's clearly in a bit of discomfort
with that hand.
Here we are, back on the A1.
Next stop, Silverstone. Silvers
Next stop, Silverstone Circuit.
Say that after a few glasses
of chardonnay.
We're camping in Silverstone racetrack.
It's such a laugh.
I think it's just brilliant.
Who's putting a brew on?
They must think we're really stupid.
Has anyone else ever camped
in Silverstone?
It's quite a bizarre spot.
- No.
- Not on the track.
Now that we're here I think
it's the best thing we've ever done.
But, yeah
When I first saw it,
I was just saying to Jimmy,
"You will never, ever watch
a Formula 1 grand prix again"
- I'd say, "I slept there."
- "without saying,
'We slept right there.'"
Right. Let's get the tents up
while it's still light.
It's a whole new experience.
- Is there gonna be a competition?
- No, there's no competitive
There's no element of competition
between Charley and I.
What lovely little tent pegs.
Aren't they lovely?
You know if it's double entry?
Yes, yes, yes.
He'll fuck it up. No. Yeah.
We're just working out
our creature comforts for Africa
here in Silverstone.
A lot of poleage.
"Insert black-hubbed pole tips
into the grommets
in the black corner stake loops"
Oh, my God. What the fuck is going on?
"Clip black webbing clips on tent body
to black poles."
- Okay, that bit I understand.
- What's this? This is all
These roof tents
were quite controversial.
They either work and everybody loves me,
or they don't work
and everybody laughs at me.
There's no competition. I think I'm ahead.
Don't tell him, okay?
Can you go over and maybe knock
a peg down or something like that,
just to slow him down?
Yeah, yeah, and he'll find some way
to win it even if I'm first, you know?
Okay, but I've
I've got my door rolled back. Look.
- But I'm in mine. I'm in mine!
- So I won.
What should we have for dinner tonight
is the question.
Spicy vegetable rigatoni?
Beans and sausages in tomato sauce?
Chicken casserole.
I'm going to McDonald's.
"Spotted dick and custard," we have.
That's a favorite for the Americans.
Somebody's gave sent this to me.
I don't know who.
Someone I don't know sent it from America,
and it's a good luck bell that you're
meant to put on your motorcycle somewhere.
It's got the eagle on it. Look.
And it kind of wards off evil spirits
as you ride along.
And I thought I'd lost it.
But it's just turned up.
It was in my boot.
Okay.
The tents are up, guys,
so can we go to the hotel now?
No, really. Don't you think?
It was good.
Rained last night and this morning.
I woke up feeling quite happy,
and once all the cars are kitted away
we'll do a lap of Silverstone
on the bikes.
I was so disappointed when I woke up
this morning. I was so excited
about having a dry day at Silverstone.
They assured me that the track
is as sticky dry as it is wet.
- Sticky wet as it is dry.
- Sticky wet as it is dry.
Here we go, flying lap of Silverstone
in the rain on a touring bike.
It's very, very wet. Holy moly.
Very exciting, though.
It's nice, even though it's slow
and in the wet and on big bikes,
it's still great fun on the track.
What a laugh. Fantastic.
Two laps of Silverstone.
I can see Ferraris.
I think there's two new Ferraris,
and I think Charley and I are gonna get
hopefully driven round in them.
I don't want to be in charge
of a brand-new Ferrari in the rain.
It's not a good idea. So hopefully
some professional racing driver
will drive us round in them.
It sounds nice. That
Right, then, so you've got your own lids.
- Right.
- We'll get you strapped in then.
I don't care what you do
as long as we beat them, okay?
This is a Ferrari 360 with the F1 box,
which means it has the paddle shift.
- This is up a gear. This is down a gear.
- Yeah.
- It's fantastic.
- Wow.
No, it's incredible you can go so quickly
when there's so much water on the ground.
'Cause you're coming into the corner,
you think, "Jeez, slow down, mate.
Slow down, mate. Slow down, mate."
And he's just, wham! Like that.
This is us headed back into London.
It's absolutely miserable.
Everything's wet. My arse is wet.
Gloves. Ten degrees.
Not much of a laugh, really.
Still, you know, it could be snow.
Now this is the way I come to the office
every day when I go down there, so
I've just ridden from John O'Groats,
and now I feel like I'm just
nipping down to the office.
We'll take the bikes back
to the workshop
set them up and park them,
move a few things.
And tomorrow we take off properly,
so we've done the first leg,
John O'Groats
to London.
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
I wonder if they had a little tidy-up
while we were away.
Hey, Sarah.
They did have a little tidy-up.
Lots of things to fix
on the cars, I think.
Gotta repack them,
check out all the comms.
Check out some of the camera equipment
'cause that's not working.
The good news is
we went and we came back,
but we do need to simplify this
a little bit, you know?
So how are you feeling
with your chest and stuff?
- Feel fine.
- Yeah?
Yeah. What's all this?
- Oh, it's These are dog tags.
- Oh, blood type.
It's a waterproof bag for toilet paper.
You know what I mean?
I think I've got enough earplugs.
I'm gonna go off in a minute,
take my stuff home.
My bags, you know? And just have
one last sort through them both tonight.
It's the final day, man! We're off!
Probably one of the most difficult
parts of the project
is leaving your family at home,
and that's the most difficult part for me
is leaving Emily.
This is it, though, now,
you know what I mean?
It's like, when we leave here, we're gone.
Ready to go.
And at first I was feeling a bit sick.
I think, just the anticipation of all
'cause we're leaving now,
and this is it.
We're leaving London,
and there's no turning back.
Take care. See you soon.
I've been waiting for this moment
for a long time now,
and, although I'm sad to be leaving,
I'm really excited about what's ahead.
That's fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen,
thanks for coming to see us off.
And hopefully you'll be thinking of us,
not "out of sight, out of mind."
- Thank you so much.
- Thank you!
Bye, girls. Bye!
Okay, let's go!
Glad I got a good wheelie off the run.
- See ya, Dave!
- Bye!
Jesus, I can't believe we're off.
I cannot believe we're doing this.
I can't believe we're doing it. Charley,
I can't believe we're doing it, man!
What are we doing, man?
It's just fantastic.
It's just another trip.
Since I spoke to Olly last night,
she I was all nervous
and atwitter and all over the place.
And she says, "You've got to really
enjoy this trip," she said.
And it is. It's a really special moment.
It's a special thing to be able to do.
Thank you, Olly, for giving me
those words of wisdom last night
and for being so brave and so amazing.
And for the shag as well.
Clear on.
I suddenly had a little pang of, like,
"Oh, God, we're leaving the island.
We're leaving Britain," you know?
It's kind of nice though.
It's good, it's good.
All the way to the front.
- Always bring your moist towelette.
- It helps.
In the military they teach you
that you'd be able to wipe your bum
with that one moist towelette 18 times.
I wouldn't even think about that.
- Leaving the UK.
- Yeah.
Oh, my God.
I can feel your heart beating
- That's incredible.
- It's amazing!
- See you later. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
- Bye.
- Respect. See you.
- Thanks. Cheers.
Next stop: France.
Look, we're here, underwater,
and we're going to here.
But Dijon is there.
The idea was to get to Dijon,
but it's a long way from Dijon.
Then we'd go maybe normal roads
to get to the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
Anyway, I mean, I'm thinking
we're stopping around here maybe.
Oh, really? Why don't we go there?
Saint-Dizier.
I'm sure tired already.
Ready for another 300 miles?
Yeah. Bring it on.
Three hundred miles for breakfast.
We're going to Cape Town.
I was riding along there, just looking
at the cars in the back of these trucks
pulling out to overtake, and I thought,
"Oh, my God, we're going to Cape Town."
If we're looking for a slightly
earlier stop today,
a cathedral city is probably
as good as any
to look for somewhere to stay.
Yeah, I think that's the cathedral
up there on the right.
Is that the cathedral up there
on the right of us I'm filming?
Yeah.
That's our current position, right?
- That's Como right there.
- See the red dot?
And you pull out There we are.
- We are right there on the
- Reims, south of Reims.
We're basically trying to get
to the Moto Guzzi factory
on Lake Como on Friday.
If we miss it, it won't be open.
You know, we have to get there
midday Friday, I would say, at the latest,
which means quite a lot of riding to do.
So, we've got to decide whether
it's worth riding all that distance,
or do we take a more leisurely time
and not go to the Moto Guzzi factory?
No, but The question is
do you do 400 miles tomorrow?
Suddenly find ourselves
under terrible pressure
just to get on all the time.
The distances are just massive
to try and keep up
with the kind of schedule
that we want to get to.
I don't know. It just seems like
just a manic rush to get down there
all the time, to get to Tunisia,
just to get anywhere.
So it's the morning
of our second day in France
and today we've got the big push
right the way down to
the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
I just opened the door and look.
It's raining.
Bugger.
Looks like it's been raining all night.
God.
Sorry.
Lucky we're in a hotel.
It's not gonna be a nice ride.
Thought we'd had
enough of the rain, I must say.
- If anything it's getting worse.
- It's really heavy now, isn't it?
It's heavy and it's getting worse.
Gentlemen,
mount your Roadmaster bicycles.
Here we go, off to Mont Blanc in the rain.
No, no, Ewan's going into iPod mode.
I've gone into iPod mode.
So, I'll see you on the other side.
Unfortunately
because of the itinerary we've got,
we've got to keep making miles up
during the day.
Otherwise we won't get through
to the ferry
from Sicily to Tunisia.
These trips put you to the test.
Whether we've got a little bit of comfort
in these cars
or we stay in a comfortable hotel,
it's still difficult.
Good thing is the guys went off
on their own on the bikes today.
And we travel on our own,
do our own thing,
and they travel and they do their thing.
Beautiful town, Dijon.
I've been there many times to film there.
Of course what we're doing
is just riding straight past it
in the rain on this motorway.
My feet are like in one of those
spa bubble hot things
but without the hot and the bubbles.
Or the spa.
Pissing with rain.
Just raining, raining, raining, raining.
Be mindful of your thoughts,
they betray you.
So, Charley, how do you feel
about the whole situation?
I think I've got a bit of heatstroke.
What's really
keeping me going right now
is the thought of getting
to a really nice campsite tonight
and getting the tents up,
even if it's raining,
and getting in there and drying off
all my kit in the tent.
Because we've both
got these dehumidifiers
that we carry with us in the tent.
I'm wet up to way up my arms,
inside, up to past the elbow.
Please let me stay in a hotel tonight.
He's jealous!
It never rains in England
Only sunshine
It's the same here!
I took my rain shoes
out of the locker in our office,
and I was just about to put them
in the pannier and Charley went
"You're never gonna need those, mate.
You're not gonna need those."
So I went, "Ah, yeah," and put them away.
It was just another thing to carry,
was it?
"Don't listen to Charley"
is the motto of that story.
This is the Mont Blanc Tunnel ♪
No overtaking!
It's a little warmer in here.
It's like, God, so cold.
I'm so cold and wet ♪
We're heading to Aosta
in the Italian Alps.
And then tomorrow morning
we're gonna wake up
and go to the Moto Guzzi factory
which is just outside of Lake Como.
That will be a much shorter riding day,
which will be good.
Here we go, back into the pouring rain.
And we're in Italy. We're cruising down.
We're hopefully gonna find
somewhere to stay soonish,
and get in and try and get
some of this stuff dry.
This is crazy.
We just made really good time
to get to the Mont Blanc Tunnel,
and all of our GPS's
The tunnel's up on the right,
the big turrets.
Oh, my God, we're going back
the same way.
Okay, they're here now. Go ahead.
We were supposed to stay in a hotel
just, like, four or five kilometers
outside the city,
but we took a wrong turn because all
the roads sort of go on top of each other.
The GPS couldn't read it properly.
So we ended up miles away going down
through all of these endless tunnels.
Hey, guys, what do you think
we just get the hell out of here
and follow this road the way we want to go
and just get out?
'Cause this system of roads is crazy
unless somebody knows where we're going.
Just go for it.
I mean, I'll just follow you.
- I'll figure something out.
- We'll figure something out.
Let's head for the Lake Como route
and just find somewhere on the way.
Maybe this is the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
It was a quite tiring day today, actually.
Yeah, so that's drying.
Hopefully it will be dry tonight.
Hopefully drying the boot out.
Just drying out the map bag.
That's all my riding gear, just about
to put the hair dryer to it now.
I must say, it was really good to get
to a hotel and have a shower,
and I can't tell you
how long the shower was.
That is unbelievable, to be warm.
That was a very long, wet, cold day.
And it feels very good to be in the shower
and be getting warm.
We blasted through France, and in a way
it's a shame we had to do that.
But what are you gonna do?
We are in a bit of a rush
so I suppose we just have to
take it as it comes.
Unless you could get to Florence,
which I think is just too much of a push.
- It's too far.
- Too far out in the evening.
I'd be happier to just stay there.
- Chill out a little bit.
- Chill out in Lake Como.
I've never been there. I've heard
nothing but beautiful things about it.
They shot that stuff in the lake
for Star Wars in Lake Como,
- and I missed it, so
- I'm very conscious of getting
of getting tired as well.
It'd be nice to see the Guzzi garden
That's weird
To see the Guzzi garage, and then
and then stay at Lake Como.
- Just because it's
- Lake Homo?
- Lake Como.
- Lake Homo?
- Lake Como. 'Cause it's
- Can I look at your ear?
You think maybe I should be looking
in your ears if you thought I said that.
It's a beautiful sunny day.
I don't know if you can see through here.
Look at that.
That was the view
from our window.
Anyway, because yesterday was so wet,
the boots just haven't had
a chance to dry,
so the trick
is to use one of these, a plastic bag.
You just stick the plastic bag on here.
You get the boots like this
and you put the plastic bag
and that gives you a nice dry foot.
And then, because it's such a pretty day,
by tomorrow the boot will be dry.
Today we ride from here
to the Moto Guzzi factory
which is in Lake Como.
And it's, I think, 150
160 miles or something, so
A nice, kind of gentle ride.
We get there by 2:00 or something.
So we're gonna go there,
and enjoy this beautiful sunny day
'cause it's the first sunny day we've had
since we started the trip, really.
I just saw this couple
lying in this field sunbathing,
and she was topless, believe it or not.
Just a beautiful day.
This is like driving
through someone's throat.
Miles of these tunnels. Fantastic fun.
It's a bit like some weird,
crazy video game, you know?
I love it. Look at that.
We should be getting up
very close now to the factory.
Yeah. To the fattoria.
Oh, here we go.
We are over the lake and far away.
Moto Guzzi are the largest
Italian motorcycle manufacturers,
the oldest and largest in Europe,
loved by bikers all over the world.
- Hello. Buongiorno.
- Glad to meet you.
Moto Guzzi.
I'm so excited to be here.
I'm just taking all my clothes off.
I love it so much!
- That's the old V-8.
- Exactly.
It was won the Isle of Man TT,
- and an amazing bike.
- Yeah, yeah.
It is a bike that Moto Guzzi used
during 1953, 1957.
- What?
- It's very light.
- I mean, it feels very light.
- Look at that.
So Ewan, do you think
we could get the panniers on these
and probably make it into Cape Town
on these?
Oh, I can't believe how comfortable
the seat is
compared to the one I'm on
at the moment.
I'm riding to Cape Town on a seat
that's as hard as that floor.
And I sit on this, it's like
A little present to yourself
when you get back, you know?
This is the old wind tunnel.
And when they used to fire it up
it made all the lights in the village
go down.
So they banned them from using it anymore.
What they've done
is they've kept the old stuff,
and they built a new plant
further up the way there.
We had a great time looking around
the factory. I loved it.
I just loved it.
Pretty cool, huh?
From the top you can just see
it's the empty casing.
And then it works its way down.
An engine starts here, the gearbox here.
The engine there, and it goes down
that line of 12 men at the end.
They test it for 20 minutes, and there's
there's engines sitting
all over the floor. It's great.
But it feels more personal somehow
because it's, you know,
just 12 guys in a line.
I like it. It doesn't feel so automated.
Look at all those engines.
Row upon row upon row.
I love it. I love it.
There's so many dreams
lying around on the floor.
So many possibilities.
Where are they gonna end up?
They're just giving birth to the engines.
So giving life to the engine,
and they run it for 20 minutes
just to make sure that everything's okay,
breathe life into it.
Oh, look, there's one coming off
the end of the assembly line right there.
For the assembly of the bike
it takes about one hour 20 minutes,
and it starts at the end
of this assembly line here.
By the time it gets to here it's ready.
Then it goes into this room over here,
where it gets the engine fired up,
make sure that everything works
and the gears work and stuff.
So one hour 20 minutes,
10,000 a year.
That's the Griso exhaust there.
It sits that way.
I mean, it's a heavy
it's a heavy exhaust.
People come up and go, "Look at the size
of your exhaust pipe!"
I mean, people come up and say that
to me anyway, but
Close to 24,000 euro in Italy.
- £18,000.
- 20 £18,000. Yeah.
They say "once you've had a slick,
you never go back,"
is what they say.
I don't know why I'm holding my breasts
saying that.
Beautiful.
- Very nice.
- Bet it sounds amazing.
- A symphony.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They used to have a track
400 meters, did you say?
- Four hundred twenty meters.
- Four hundred and twenty meters.
- A big loop.
- Would you like to try a trip around?
Okay.
Four hundred and twenty meters,
and the test riders used to go around here
on all the models,
and they would get up
to 135 kilometers an hour,
which is like 85 miles an hour,
on this tiny little ring.
What a view,
early in the morning cranking it around.
Isn't it lovely? I'm so glad we came here.
It's brilliant.
That's us leaving the Moto Guzzi factory.
We had a fantastic time.
Walking in that engine room was fantastic.
Bloody hell.
Great. Anyway, here we go. We're gonna
push on for a couple of hours.
And I have to say I'm really looking
forward to having a bit of a ride,
get some air through the old jacket.
Quite sweaty and hot now.
We're surrounded by luxury here in Italy.
And in case anyone's wondering,
I think we always said, listen
We know it's gonna get tougher later,
so why make it tough for yourself
at the beginning?
That's our philosophy.
We know it's gonna get difficult
for the next two months.
So you'll have to excuse
the swimming pool behind us.
So this is the green machine.
What we've done,
while the boys are riding,
we film a lot of tapes for the TV show,
and what we try to do is configure
the back of the car now
so that we've got our editing suite,
and a way of actually copying
all of the tapes onto hard drives.
It means that we have a backup copy
of all the tapes we've shot,
which we then fly back to London
from which we make the show.
Plus we can watch the footage
that we've shot as we go.
So the passenger sitting here can look
back and actually see what's going on.
Have a look in the back.
So it's a bit more tidy.
Although it doesn't look it.
But you can see how jam-packed we are.
Now hopefully that's as optimum
as it's gonna get
throughout the whole trip now.
The other guys have gone down
to Rome or wherever,
and left us to our own devices,
so we thought we'd camp somewhere.
And either we'll find a campground
if we can, it's what we're looking for,
or we'll just find a farm and ask
a farmer if we can camp there.
But we've got coordinates for one.
So back up that way?
- We're oh, we're here.
- We're here.
So we go there and then
So he's just ringing up to see
if any of these campsites are open.
He's gonna try on his phone,
which is very nice of him, isn't it?
- Very, very nice.
- Grazie.
Phone Lucy in London,
get her to book us into a campsite.
No, just ask that guy over there.
Isn't that great?
Nice people.
- Arrivederci.
- Thank you. Thanks very much.
A little bit tired. Three.
Three for the tent.
Okay.
Anywhere place.
Anywhere place. Anywhere.
Well, tonight we have to find
the right spot, Charley.
Another long day.
I've got my drinking straw,
if we need to hard-core it tonight.
And it also doubles as a flute.
And does a bit of fluting as well.
You can use it as a flute,
which is nice.
Could be the night for the
to christen the pee bottle tonight.
I've got danger tape on it,
so everyone knows to leave it well alone.
I'm all confused.
We're so experienced now
at the camp, you know?
If you can do Silverstone, man,
I mean you can do anywhere, really.
You know what I mean, Ewan?
I got some more sausage there
if there's not much left over.
It's so much easier
than checking into a hotel
'cause you just park your bike,
everything comes off your bike,
you put your tent up.
In the morning everything goes back
on the bike and off you go.
I had to pan down
in case you're gonna see it come out.
- Have you ever lit a fart?
- No. I'm not filming.
No, it's gone.
- Keep it on standby, 'cause it's coming.
- I'll keep it on standby.
- How are you?
- Hi.
- I have my hands full.
- I'm Ewan.
- I'm Francine. Hi.
- Nice to meet you, Francine.
- Hello, I am Walther.
- Hi, Walther. How are you?
- We are bikers too, and I thought
- Yeah.
- I have some spaghettis.
- Oh, my gosh.
Look at that. And cheese.
Well, I wish we had some something
to offer you, but we don't.
- That's okay.
- Just our friendship.
- Three forks and spaghettis.
- Oh, that's fantastic.
Oh, wow. That's very kind of you.
- No problem.
- Where are you from?
Switzerland. I'm sure you're hungry.
I'm starving.
We are going from the top
of Scotland, John O'Groats,
- to Cape Town.
- You're gonna go to Cape Town?
- Yeah.
- We went down to Cape Town,
then we travel up to Dar es Salaam.
- With the motorcycles.
- On motorcycles?
Oh, that's amazing. How fortuitous to meet
you having done some of the journey.
53.643
We're getting some GPS points and
addresses of places in Malawi, campsites.
That means from here,
it's 6,735 kilometers
till you get there.
Wow. So we're going the longer way.
We're moaning about doing 350 tomorrow.
- Can you swim in Lake Malawi? No problem?
- Yeah. Sure.
Isn't there something that
the fish that swims up your willy
- and doesn't come out?
- The worms, the worms.
- Worms.
- Yeah. But come on!
The fish is not the problem.
- Sand is the problem. Sand.
- Sand?
- Gets in there. Yeah, yeah.
- Deep sand is the problem. I think so.
In Botswana we were camping
way off the off the street,
then we went to sleep
and suddenly in the middle of the night
we heard far away
So we were lying in the bed
cuddling together
and thinking, I was like,
"Hope this lion won't come."
And the next morning
we were telling this story,
and nobody wanted to believe us.
Then we were looking around
and about 20 meters past our tent
we could see could see the big paws.
I mean, they're very huge paws
of this lion.
- We were lucky.
- It's been lovely to see you guys.
It's really nice to have a little bit
of information.
- Thank you, Walther.
- Bye.
- Thank you very much.
- Have a nice time.
Nice to see you, Francine. Thank you
so much. See you in the morning.
- We'll see you in the morning.
- We'll come up. Okay.
- Good night. Sleep well.
- Thank you.
Night-night.
I kept wanting to fart there,
I was holding it in and holding it in.
Did you get it?
I was really trying hard there as well.
Let's have a little replay.
Look. Here we go.
Here. Here it goes. Ready?
Who knew I was so talented, eh?
Not just a pretty face, Charley,
that's for sure. Not just a pretty face.
We go to Siena for lunch.
- Take care. Happy travels.
- Have a nice trip. Okay.
Yeah. And we'll see you soon.
Thank you.
We'll see you
Three times in Switzerland. Okay.
Like the Dutch.
All right, guys. Take care.
Day eight. It's day seven.
Day six.
Yesterday was day seven.
It was a week today we rolled.
Hey, look at this beauty.
Alfa Romeo. It's really beautiful.
That is absolutely gorgeous.
Siena for lunch.
There's obviously some vintage car
rally on at the moment
'cause there's so many
beautiful cars around.
Look at this church.
That is incredible.
We've just by chance come across
the Mille Miglia Rally
where these amazing old vintage cars
are going through the town.
How does the passenger get in?
a new one, really.
But look at it. It looks like it was
It looks like a bunch of chippies came
and knocked it up for a movie set
a couple of months ago, doesn't it?
Look, it's all built on top of each other.
I mean, I'd say ten a penny,
really, but
- Glasgow, Coventry.
- Yeah. Glasgow.
- Edinburgh. York.
- York.
- Stevenage.
- They've all got one.
Everyone's got a square like this.
- Let's roll, then.
- Yeah. Let's go.
I love these trees, these long thin trees.
There's something so beautifully pretty
about Italy.
My God, it's beautiful.
Rome, here we come.