Two men, four wheels and 20,000 miles.

This is the wonderful story of two friends, Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor, and their round the world journey from London to New York. The route passes through Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia, Alaska then down through Canada, the USA and finally to New York city. The journey was filmed and broken down into seven episodes and the DVD includes extra features and outtakes.

You don't need to be an off road fan or even a motorcycle enthusiast at all to enjoy this story. If you enjoy travel and television programmes such as Michael Palin's adventure series than you will find this journey fascinating.

This is no slick professional explorer tale but rather a heart warming battle across continents by two engaging and hilarious people. The preparation for the trip is well covered and the initial choice by Charley to use KTM bikes is thwarted by KTM themselves who tell the riders they will fail and refuse to supply them with bikes. The pair then go with Ewan's choice of BMW, a heavy option for some of the terrain but - cracked frames aside - the bikes get them across some of the hardest terrain on the planet.

Ewan and Charley raised awareness for charity UNICEF and the children they visited capture your heart. Watching this film leaves you feeling very good about life, peoples' honesty and motorcycles; a very nice feeling indeed.

A big part of the appeal of this film is the naïve way the lads approach the journey. It's a wonderful kind of bumbling and positive thinking approach that gets them through, still with their sense of humour intact. On the first day, by 12 noon, Ewan's Sat Nav is broken and Charley has fallen off twice!

The toughest part of the journey is probably Mongolia where the conditions almost force the pair to abandon the route and avoid the place altogether. Fortunately they persevere and give us a good experience of their progress through the country.

They forge an amazingly close bond between them that you can see strengthen further along the journey. This is a journey about friendship and building a bond, a connection as close as a marriage. Their wives and children are constantly in their hearts and you feel the bitter-sweet contention of travel and separation.

The two riders were accompanied by a third bike ridden by their cameraman and each bike had cameras attached; handheld cameras are also used to provide video diaries. One BMW breaks down so the cameraman completes part of the hardest terrain on a small Russian motorcycle which copes far better than the more sophisticated but far heavier BMW machines.

In the last few stages of the journey Ewan nearly gets killed on a freeway outside Chicago by a youngster rear-ending his bike with a car. Scary stuff and nearly a disastrous end to the journey.

There are so many really good parts of this film series, from the journey down the road of bones that had them struggling to get the bikes across raging rivers, to the bush mechanic tricks to repair broken bike frames.

I defy any true motorcyclist that watches this DVD to not want to ride part of the journey or to not want be mates with Ewan and Charley . There is a cameo scene where they meet up with Ted Simon, the inspiration for so many adventure travellers after his own epic motorcycle journey in the nineteen seventies.

Reviewed by Anarchy

More info: www.longwayround.com

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