By Any Means, also known as Ireland to Sydney by Any Means, is a television series following Long Way Round and Long Way Down TV presenter Charley Boorman. Travelling from Wicklow, Ireland, to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, it features him completing the journey using 112 modes of transport and only travelling by plane when absolutely necessary.
Background
After Long Way Round and Long Way Down, Boorman and producer Russ Malkin conceived By Any Means in late 2007. Travelling across 24 countries, the crew comprised only Boorman, Malkin and a cameraman, Paul "Mungo" Mungeam.
Journey
Episode 1
(4 June 2008) The expedition got under way on 12 April 2008 from Boorman's father John Boorman's house in Wicklow. They rode their motorbikes up to Kilkeel before crossing the Irish Sea by fishing boat to the Isle of Man, and then by ferry to Liverpool. There they took a combination of taxis and a train down to the Coventry Transport Museum to spend the night, where Boorman was reunited with the motorcycle he rode on Long Way Down, before riding again on motorcycle down to The Ace Cafe in London the next day. From there they drove an AEC Routemaster bus down to Dover and boarded a small sailboat across to Calais which they completed in five hours.
Episode 2
(11 June 2008) From Calais the expedition drove down to Paris in a 1969 Citroën DS and boarded the Venice-Simplon Orient Express which took them across France, Switzerland and Austria to Venice, Italy. They spent some time in Venice, experiencing the daily lives of people on the Venetian canals before boarding a catamaran to Poreč, Croatia. From there they travelled to Zagreb in a Yugo and then to Vukovar where they spoke to locals about the devastating Croatian War of Independence and the city's water tower with over 600 bullet holes in it that still failed to collapse it. They then boarded a train which took them through Serbia and Belgrade and they took a boat down to the Danube. Later they travelled through Bulgaria by train, where they compared the hills and pastures on the landscape to the Lake District in England, through Sofia where they stopped very briefly for refreshments before continuing on to Istanbul.
In Istanbul they experienced Turkish cuisine such as Turkish delight and apple tea which is sold in abundance in the country and they boarded a boat across the Bosphorus and drove across the coast of Northern Turkey in a minibus. It was designed as a public service bus with notices of the towns they would pass on their journey on the windows. They encountered some memorable passengers along the way including one passenger named Fatih (the pronunciation of which is "Farty" – a euphemism for flatulence common in England), this unfortunate conflict of dialect/pronunciation caused some amusement to the team and consequently some upheaval to the point the passenger felt offended and had to depart the bus. They crossed into Georgia to Batumi, where they resumed their journey in an old Russian UAZ and across to the Caspian Sea in Baku, Azerbaijan. They noted how polluted the city was, and the difficulties of the everyday lives of the workers who worked in the multibillion-dollar oil industry despite earning very little. They then travelled down the coast of the Caspian Sea to Astara, Iran but on the way they had to switch transport to an old Russian car (GAZ Volga) which was regarded as a Rolls-Royce of Russian automobiles and quite a privilege.
They reached Iran, where they joined a truck cargo with over one million kilometres to its name and its drivers who took them through to Tehran, on the way noting how the journey seemed split by lush green countryside in which tea was grown, and suddenly juxtaposed against the desert landscape by only a tunnel which they encountered on the second half of the leg. In Tehran they took a taxi through the city, driven by a tough Iranian female driver and boarded the Iranian Express which took them down to Esfahan, Qom and down to Bandar Abbas on the southern coast, travelling with the Bakhtiari along the way.