OMG, guys, I forgot to post on Friday evening about going to see Charley Boorman! He did an "Evening With..." thing at the local arts centre, as an invitee of the local branch of the Royal Geographic Society (which in retrospect explains why the audience was less biker/greebo/adventurer and more cultured/posh/ancient!)

For anyone who hasn't seen Charley Boorman's adventuring, he started off riding his motorbike from London to New York "the long way round" with mate Ewan McGregor, following this with the Dakar Rally, another trip with Ewan, and - recently - a trip from Ireland to Sydney By Any Means using only local transport.

He was talking about his general experiences of travelling, and how it all started out. Essentially, the round-the-world trip was a dream of his and McGregor's that they were orginally planning alone - then decided to film for posterity - then went the whole way and got funding to make it into a travel-documentary (mostly because CB was too broke at the time to afford the several months hiatus from work that the trip demanded, and EM is an obliging sort of chap, according to his grateful mate :D)

Charley was an engaging speaker, but it surprised me how nervous he was to start off with! I guess it's a very different gig to acting, being yourself... At any rate, he soon warmed up - and it was rather endearing :D

Charley isn't Michael Palin - you find out much less about the people and cultures he passes through on his journey. The journey itself is the thing - it's all about the act of travelling itself, with the experiences along the way a pleasant distraction! Apparently, future plans may include a follow up to By Any Means, this time travelling from Sydney up through the Philipines, Malaysia, Thailand and on up through the Pacific rim and Japan to the Russian far east...

After the talk, L and I came home and had a bit of a Long Way Round DVD marathon. I would so love to be able to do a similar journey - organised trips are available - but the cost is totally prohibitive, so until that lottery win I'll have to carry on daydreaming!

Any more budding motorcycle adventurers out there?!