Top Gear Page #8

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Red Or Black? or something.

I'm sorry we made it.

Nobody was expecting that.

Got it?

'Mind you, there was still the small

matter of disembarking.'

Uh...

not convinced.

Yes!

Well, you're NEARLY ashore.

Aren't I ashore?

Not entirely ashore, no.

Yes, I'm ashore.

Is that wheel ashore? Yes.

'We weren't convinced,

'so we gave him a helping hand.'

Here we go!

Yes!

Feeling good.

Oh, yes, oh, yes!

God, I'm a good driver.

Oh, God.

'Back on the other bank,

'it was Hammond's turn,

and for some reason,

'he decided to make life difficult

for himself.'

Why are you BACKING on?

Because it is quite difficult getting

off at the other side, yeah? Yeah.

And your BMW is now there

so it could tow me off.

The only towing eye is at the back.

It does mean I'll have to

reverse on.

Hold on, hold on!

Does that look right from there?

What...?

Oh!

Oh! Stop! Stop!

You're turning the wheel.

I did NOT turn the wheel.

You turned it minutely.

I might have leant on it.

Oh!

You're miles off the end.

A little more.

And... stop.

Oh! I am SO on board!

James, you can pull this time,

you'll see how easy it is!

I shall be ballast, there.

That's the ticket!

Not all at the same time.

You can't come on this side.

I can't go on the other side.

Look at the angle.

Gentlemen... Climb through the car.

It is impossible to stand there

because there are two ramps piled

on top of one another.

Hammond, get in your sitting room!

I can't.

Get in your sitting room! No!

You need to be on the other side.

Climb over the bloody car.

You've got heavier... Oh!

That was tied on! No, I took

the rope off. We needed the rope.

I took it off.

I CAN go on the other side...

as it turns out.

Perfect. Let's go. Forget the chair.

Are we there yet?

Somebody's had me chair!

That man's got your chair!

Good for him. Enjoy it!

Ooh, ah!

'On the other side, I was determined

to make a better job of disembarking

'than Jeremy had.'

Power. Hoo!

Some of you's on board.

Whoa, we got a problem.

That's all completely hopeless

and you've sunk the raft

and your catflap's terrible.

GO!

'I then pulled Hammond off...'

Ya-hey!

'..And that gave me an idea.'

Why don't we use this to pull

the ferry across

with the Volvo on it?

Why would we not do that?

'Rather sceptically, Hammond and I

went back to get my Volvo.'

Crack on.

Our father, who art in heaven,

if you're there,

make it go upside down, please.

Steady! Wooh!

Ooh! That looked a bit perilous.

Shall I come back? Just a tiny bit.

Wah-duh...! Stop making

squeaking noises.

The thing is, the BMW has

a 50-50 weight distribution.

50% over the front axle,

50% over the back,

which is why the raft was level.

With James' car,

70% of the weight is over

the front axle.

That's why the whole thing

is tipping down.

Are we attached? Yes.

Jeremy, we have begun!

Right,

so I pull you across the river.

Yeah, gently.

Very, very slowly indeed!

If it goes under,

it'll probably go nose-in, won't it?

Yeah, I'll stand at the back.

Are you ready?

He's going already, hang on.

This is Captain Hammond

ringing down to the engine room.

You have the slacks.

That's plenty fast enough!

Yes, gently.

Seriously, Jeremy.

We are going under.

That's too fast, too fast!

Oh, yes!

Oh, yes!

Gently, gently - seriously!

We're going in.

STOP!

Jeremy, absolutely stop

or you'll have deaths on your hands.

I've been shouted at so much.

Need a zesty drink.

'Eventually, our third and final car

was ready to go ashore.'

Forward. Oh, my Gawd!

Well, credit where it's due.

Come on!

You have to admit that is quite

a finish, with a flourish!

'It had been a fraught undertaking,

but the fact was that,

'against the odds,

'all three of our cars were

on the other side of the river.'

That's the first time,

I think, in ten years,

we've ever done anything

ambitious and successful.

I think you're right.

And doesn't it feel good?

It feels weird, frankly.

Normally there's one of us

in the water, in the jaws of a lion,

going, "Oh, he's dead!"

It was genuinely peculiar.

Oh, my God!

Oh!

It's gone! It's completely gone!

It's completely sunk!

Well done!

You can see how difficult

OUR job is.

That's how deep it was!

That could have happened to us.

It could have done...

but it didn't!

Onwards.

'Leaving the producers to

clear up their mess,

'we set off.

'And soon discovered that

Tanzania's roads were not

'built by the Chinese.'

Pothole, pothole, pothole,

pothole. BIG one.

It is like driving through

a minefield.

If you take your eye

off the road for a second,

you are into one

and they are massive.

I don't know how James

will cope with this,

because you can only

concentrate on one thing at a time

and when he's driving that is

normally an obscure poet.

"Oh, yes, Philip Larkin's done some

very good... oh, no,

"I've hit a pothole."

'Soon James hit a pothole...'

No!

'..So hard,

it took out two of his tyres.'

Erm... d'you remember...

it seems like months ago,

but at the beginning of this voyage,

we looked at these tyres and said,

"There's no way those tyres'll

survive Africa?"

The signs are not good, are they?

In that they're not. It's goodbye.

You just wait here for the backup

car. You know the code.

Oh, no, the backup car's

at the bottom of a

crocodile-infested river.

I don't need the backup car,

I have spare wheels.

You're not very helpful or useful

to me. I'll see you later.

See you, James. Bye. Bye!

'Once the Annoying Brothers

had left,

'I discovered it was rather more

than just tyre damage.'

Ho-ho-ho!

'Both wheels had shattered!

'Having raided the support

truck for more,

'I set off and caught up

with the others

'in a swarm of lake flies.'

'This told us we were getting

close to Lake Victoria.

'At 150 miles across,

it was too wide for us to even think

about building a homemade ferry.

'So we decided to use one someone

else had made earlier.'

Have you ever seen more

flies than that

in one place ever?

Oh, oh, oh!

I'll give you a million pounds

if you go

and stand there naked for an hour.

'The voyage across Lake Victoria

took more than

'16 hours, but there was

good news on the other side.

'The ferry would drop us

close to the River Grumeti,

'the river that WE believed

would take us

'to the source of the Nile.'

We're going to find

the mouth of the river,

track that back to its source,

and we've done it.

30 seconds...

'Keen to demonstrate

the advantage of four-wheel drive

'to the bewildered crowd,

'Hammond insisted on going first.'

Right, here we go.

OK.

I am ashore!

'You're letting

yourself down, the BBC,'

and the whole country with your

incompetence, Hammond.

Oh, come on!

Sorry about that, Skipper!

Leave him. We can leave him.

'And so...

'we did.'

Bye, Hammond! Bye!

Hello.

Hello.

'As we disembarked a few miles away

on a proper landing jetty,

'Hammond was being

rescued by the locals.'

We're coming out!

Everybody needs money now

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