Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
Three go MAD in Madagascar
Sharks, treasure, the world’s worst road – Clarkson and co on their latest Grand Tour
James May has been ridiculed for years for his extremely cautious driving. But now the man dubbed Captain Slow by his colleagues has the perfect excuse for proceeding – as Blackadder once put it – like an asthmatic ant with heavy shopping. For James and his TV buddies Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond reckon they’ve found the toughest road in the world, the RN5 on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar. And in their latest Grand Tour adventure A Massive Hunt we’re about to see them tackle it – very, very slowly.
‘I was driving in a gorgeous Bentley Continental GT but this road makes no allowances for the kind of vehicle you’re in,’ says Jeremy. ‘It was nigh-on impossible. The ruts and boulders were astonishing. We thought there was no way we’d be able to drive over this stuff and – as viewers will discover – maybe one of us didn’t...’
Richard agrees. ‘The potholes were like mountains and valleys and it was relentless. You think, “It’s going to take me an hour to drive the length of the car,” and then there’s a two-hour delay while your vehicle is repaired. It was hellish. The bumps and bangs meant you were constantly having your bodily organs rearranged.’
At least Richard had a roof over his head in his Ford Focus RS. James was in a Caterham Seven, a little British sports car that’s roofless, and largely sideless. Not much fun when the RN5 boasts many very deep, muddy puddles, which James nosedived into with terror on his face.
‘Disappearing into a sea of mud, I’d wonder, “What’s actually in here? What am I drinking and being covered in?” I dread to think. But it gave the others a laugh.’
‘And a reason to hold our noses,’ says Richard. ‘James smelt rank for days.’
There’s a purpose to all this madness. At the 1730. Legend has it that it holds clues to the location of the bullion, gems and religious artefacts including the Flaming Cross Of Goa – a golden crucifix covered in diamonds, emeralds and rubies – he buried.
The cryptogram has baffled treasure-seekers for centuries but James reckons he’s cracked it... or at least some of it. By the show’s climax the chaps are on a beach with metal detectors and explosives – and making a discovery in the sand.
Unsurprisingly, this new adventure is not without jeopardy, although some of it is farcically self-inflicted. ‘We actually started on the island of Reunion to the east of Madagascar, on the erroneous assumption that Levasseur might have buried his treasure there because that’s where he himself is buried,’ says Jeremy.
‘Before we packed up and flew to Madagascar we went snorkelling in waters where a man had been eaten by a shark just a day before.
The problem was we didn’t know it was so dangerous because the conversation Richard had with a local using his very limited schoolboy French told him otherwise. What Richard had interpreted as, “I like to go swimming on Wednesdays,” was actually, “Don’t, whatever you do, go swimming there.” We survived, but no thanks to the Hamster.’
Such tensions haven’t stopped the trio planning more jaunts together. A trip to northern Russia was put on hold because of the pandemic, but they have been spotted filming a socially distanced future episode in Scotland, and Jeremy hopes to get back to more exotic Grand Tour locations once the coronavirus has been tamed.
‘I’d love to keep going with The Grand Tour until I start repeating myself and drooling and it’s time to be put in a home,’ he says. ‘But as long as people keep tuning in to our adventures, we’ll keep going on them.’
nThe Grand Tour: A Massive
Hunt will be available from 18 December on Amazon Prime.