Interview: Charley Boorman on his tour of Oz

Charley Boorman is an actor, but he is perhaps better known for his passion for motorcycles. His enthusiasm for two-wheels came to worldwide attention when he and his mate Obi-Wan Ken…Ewan McGregor starred in the hit series, Long Way Round, and its sequel, Long Way Down.

Last year, Charley and Ewan wrapped up a third instalment, tentatively known as the Long Way Up. While information is scarce, it has become public knowledge they complete the trip on a pair of Harley Davidson LiveWire electric bikes.

Charley has also been running motorcycle tours in recent years, including an annual tour in Australia. Earlier in 2020 he completed another edition of his Aussie tour, travelling from Melbourne to Sydney via Tasmania, on a Harley-Davison Low Rider S.

The man himself attended a Harley-Davidson function at Fraser Motorcycles, Parramatta in March to talk about his Aussie trip. bikesales contributor, Nigel Crowley, sat down with him to talk about the tour and their last encounter on a drag strip, but he was strictly instructed not to ask about Long Way Up. C'mon Charley, the anticipation is killing us.

Can you give us a rundown of your latest trip, Charley?

I do motorcycle tours every year and those tours came about because, after Long Way Round and Long Way Down, people always joked that it’d be great if they rode with me through Africa or somewhere. I thought, well if that’s the case, and people really want to do it, maybe I’ll do a tour. So we started doing those tours, and we still do them every year. Long Way Round and By Any Means and Race to Dakar were all quite popular here and I periodically visited Australia and people said the same thing. We hooked up with a company called Compass Expeditions who do tours all over the world and they said would you be interested in doing one in Australia. I’ve got a lot of friends here, and thought how perfect to do a tour here once a year. It’s an excuse to come to Australia, ride around Tasmania, which is just awesome, and catch up with friends as well. So that’s kind of why we are here and we just finished a tour a couple of days ago. It is Melbourne to Sydney, via Tasmania.

Not the most direct route…

No its not (laughing). We started in Melbourne, jumped on the ferry and went anti-clockwise around Tasmania. It was some of the most incredible roads – that road from Hobart to Strahan is just amazing. I remember Eric Bana telling me they were some of his favourite roads. So we just finished that tour – half the people were from Australia and the other half were from Canada, America, Britain, and Japan. They were kind of from all over the place.

Is this the second time you’ve done this?

No, I think this is the sixth…no seventh time we’ve done it. We do it every year, and actually I’m just thinking about the last time we met. It was at the Triumph Bobber launch and we went down to the drag strip…

That’s right, at Sydney Motorsport Park…

Yeah, and I just wanted to clarify who won that drag?

I’d have to say you won that one, Charley.

(Laughing) We had a great laugh. We went down to this drag strip and I’d never done it before. I asked the starter guy, what’s the go? How do you do it? And he said, when the light goes orange, just go, because by the time your body does it, the light will be green. And I wasn’t near the fastest going down the straight…anyway, I thought I’d just put that out there (laughing).

Well done for winning that one. So was there anything unusual about this latest tour?

It was interesting – we had a lot of people worried about the fires, and there were really bad fires this year. A few people said maybe we shouldn’t go, and I wrote an email to everyone saying that if there was ever a time to come to Australia, it is now – to support people in Australia because this is when they need it the most. And I think what people misunderstand is that a lot of places in Australia were burnt, but there were plenty of places that weren’t. I think the world media got a bit confused about that, and I think it has damaged Australian tourism.

I think people in Australia were confused about it too…

It was terrible, and don’t get me wrong, it is horrendous where the fires were and we went through it. People have to rebuild their lives and they have lost a lot. What was really encouraging is how quickly Mother Nature has come back. We went through places that had been ravaged by fires, but because of all the rain, there was green grass everywhere, shrubs sprouting from the trees – it was amazing to see. So my message to everyone was, Australia is still open for business and it was only parts of it that had some horrible experiences.

Very true. Lastly, what did you do the tour on?

I did it on a Harley Davidson Low Rider S, which is their new 1400cc Milwaukee engine and it’s quite nice. And it handles incredibly well. We went up from Melbourne to Bright, Bright to Jindabyne, then up through the mountains and eventually dropped in towards Wollongong and then up the coast. But the roads…

Around Bright is amazing – it’s one of my favourite places to ride…

There is an amazing motorcycle rider who lives there named Miles Davis who does things on a GS that I didn’t think were possible. He’s moved up there, so every year we hook up with him and he takes us through some dirt roads. We actually did some gravel on the Harley and its fine.

Thank you so much Charley for this brief interview. It’s good to see you again mate.

My pleasure, thank you very much.