Original subtitles

Hello, and welcome to a Top Gear special.

That is Resolute, the most northerly town in Canada, way in the Arctic Circle,

and we're here to have a race.

Four hundred miles over mostly frozen ocean in that direction,

to the North Pole.

I shall be travelling using traditional methods - husky dogs, sledge, and skis.

Yes, and I'm gonna try and beat him in a car.

Now, that's never been done before.

No one has ever tried to drive to the North Pole.

(Richard) And here's why.

On the way, he would encounter ice boulders as big as cathedrals,

polar bears the size of hatchbacks

temperatures that would freeze the fuel in his tank,

and, if Al Gore is to be believed, open water into which he would sink.

Victory, then, would be mine.

Right, time to meet my team.

The engines powering me to the Pole would be ten husky dogs.

Where the car would get stuck or crash through the thin ice, they'd be fine.

Driving them would be Mattie McNair,

one of the world's leading sled dog explorers and racers.

Dogs have been living up here for 4,000 years. They can go through anything.

They can go through cold and blizzard.

My dog can find the hard-packed ice and go through it like that.

He figures out a route.

- So that's terrain, weather... - Yeah.

...they're made for.

- What about this... I've just been wee'd on. - (Laughs)

- Did they have to wee on me? - They're fast.

(Jeremy) To beat the human lamppost,

I would be using, naturally, a Toyota pickup truck.

It's a tough old bird, this,

but for the trip to the Pole, it had been sent to lceland for a few modifications.

The biggest change, apart from the gun, obviously,

are the enormous wheels.

Cuban wheels, I like to call them. Give it extra height.

The tyres are handmade, cost two and a half thousand pounds each.

They're so vast, in fact, that the front suspension has had to be moved forwards

or you wouldn't be able to open the door.

Other changes? It's got heavy-duty diffs, heavy-duty suspension.

It's got a sump guard about that thick, in

case we hit a piece of solid 300-year-old ice.

And then at the front, I insisted it was fitted with these powerful spot lamps,

although that might have been unnecessary,

since it's currently 11.30pm, and this is as dark as it ever gets.

(Jeremy) inside there was marine satellite navigation.

Underneath, a long-range fuel tank

filled with a freeze-resistant mixture of diesel and avgas.

In fact, all I need to complete the picture is a guide and a navigator.

Now, Richard Hammond has been given Mattie McNair,

one of the world's leading arctic experts.

Me, I've been given... him.

- (Dog barks) - Can I just make it clear now,

that the producer said I had to be here.

I don't like snow. I hate being cold.

I hate outdoor pursuits.

I hate the idea that I've got to "push my body to find the limit".

I can't stand this stupid clothing that makes

this rustling noise when you move all the time.

I hate the zips and the toggles and all the

pockets and that, and I hate your stupid truck.

Listen, shh, shh, shh. If we make it, look at it this way.

You will be the first person ever to go to the North Pole

who didn't want to be there.

(Dogs bark and snarl)

(Jeremy) So we have the right tools for the job... which just left us.

We're not what you'd call polar explorers.

So earlier in the year, we'd been sent to a cold-weather training camp

in the Austrian Alps.

... frozen...

We were put in the hands of some Arctic experts, who showed us what salami was,

and how to put an anorak on,

and to be honest, our minds kept wandering.

- There was a man who ate a car once. - There was.

That bloke who ate everything? He ate an aeroplane.

(Jeremy) But then a doctor snapped us to attention.

What's happened here is, er... your foreskin

around the end here has been frostbitten.

Shall we go straight to the frozen penis?

- Ahh! - Oh!

He'd been walking with it hanging out.

How d'you walk with your willy hanging out?

- It comes down to organisation and teamwork. - It's more than disorganised!

Good job he didn't do it on the Underground.

You'd be arrested for letting it hang out.

(Jeremy) The doctor went on to the important

question of how we'd do our number twos.

- You've got to be quick. - He can't be.

We've nearly missed entire programmes.

Sometimes Top Gear is delayed by an hour.

I get the runs very, very easily, especially

if I go abroad, which the North Pole is.

- All doctors say better out than in. - But that's not true of your penis in -50.

Essentials for the Arctic crap. Take your gun.

Put your bog roll on the gun and take a shovel.

- Take your gun with you? - To the loo?

Absolutely. All the bears love to creep up on you when you're taking a crap.

That's not exactly sporting of them, is it, really?

(Jeremy) The next day, it was time for some outdoor training, but it was freezing.

So we went for a cup of coffee instead.

- If it's like this when we get to the Pole... - Yeah.

...We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, cos how can you practise being cold?

Snow is snow, and there's no point in going out there today, catching our death.

(James) Exactly, then you wouldn't be able to go, because you'd have a cold.

(Jeremy) Eventually, the weather cleared

and I gave May and Hammond their first ever skiing lesson.

I can't go cos of the wind!

Richard in particular would be spending a lot of time skiing alongside his dogs.

Urgh!

Keep them so that the tips are like that.

- Aargh! - Don't worry about him.

(Jeremy) Go a bit more downhill or level your skis out.

If I go downhill, I'll slip!

(Jeremy) James wasn't much better.

- James, please put them on. - I'm coming down here to put them on.

It's the same here.

(Jeremy) Push off, and then to stop just kick

the arse out of the skis with your heel.

Don't cross them.

(Richard) Oh, thanks! It's taken me 20 minutes to get there!

- We can go together. - No, I've only got one ski on.

(Jeremy) Progress was painfully slow.

It's not on.

Ah!

Oh, God! Sorry, sorry, sorry!

- Oh, God! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! - (Laughter)

- Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! - (Laughter)

Right.

- We've done... See where we've come from? - Yeah.

30, 40 yards. You've got 400 miles to ski.

Jeremy!

(Jeremy) We were then taught how to erect a tent.

Our instructor was a former special-forces

soldier, who arrived with a pixelated face.

And he was bossy.

We can do this now, or we can do it at four o'clock in the morning.

The only good thing is that it can't possibly be colder than this in the Arctic.

(Instructor) You've broken that one, you have to push it.

You've now got poles stuck in here that you

have to get out, and you have no way...

- I didn't break it. It broke. - Who broke the elastic, then?

(Jeremy) The man with the funny face was getting more and more irritated.

I've had a brilliant idea.

- What's the idea? - Why don't we just tow a caravan?

James! Feed it through!

Towards the tent? Yeah?

- What are you doing? - Put your foot on there.

If this blows away, that's it, it's game over.

There's no like, "Oh, we'll just get another tent down the Co-op."

This tent is it.

That's not going well!

- You haven't got that end. - I missed it!

These are packed with ice, these things.

(Laughing)

Pick up the tent. Take it back to where we put the tent up.

(Jeremy) Finally, quite a bit later, the tent was up.

It's...

I think you can sleep in it.

(Jeremy) Sadly, our ordeal was not yet over,

because the man with the ruined face was going to show us

how it would feel to fall through the polar ice.

Right, in your own time, I want all three of you to jump in.

- What's the problem? - (Richard) Hang on.

So at the Pole, we'd be in safety harnesses,

holding poles, when we fall in the water?

I'm not doing that.

The whole point is to take your clothes off and put more on quickly.

I did that in the hotel.

What is it when you've got a tingling down your arm and chest pain...

He's gone in.

(Instructor) Quick, pull yourself out! Pull yourself out!

Come on, put some effort in!

You don't want to stay in there all day!

- I dare you to... - Hands above your head!

Hands above your head! OK, roll in the snow, roll in the snow! Roll in the snow!

Roll in the snow ! That'll make you much

better, rather than a big pink fluffy towel.

- That looked awful. - I'm... I'm staggered.

D'you know what, though? I like to think of us as a unit on Top Gear.

As a unit, we've done that test.

(Richard) Our instructors were not impressed,

and decided we needed our heads banging together.

So they drafted in the legendary Arctic explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

The problem we have is that we can't get into our heads

that this is a particularly dangerous place to go.

But you think it is?

No, I don't think it is, I know that it can be,

because of what's happened to me in that area over the last 36 years.

You will have the polar bear problem.

You will have the ignorance problem, cos you lot are apparently ignorant.

And thirdly, the fact that you will all start hating each other

because of the extreme cold having an effect...

- I hate him anyway. - I hate him.

Hatred is very real.

You're behind someone, for instance, all day and every day, or beside them,

and you start mentally hating them for the smallest possible thing.

My main colleague over the last 20 years, and good friend, Mike Stroud,

told me, sitting in a pub in the UK,

that the year before when we were up by the Pole, and he was travelling behind me,

um... he spent that particular day

planning how he was gonna shoot me and where he was gonna dump the body.

You don't want to laugh about it, which you lot seem to be doing.

OK, now, the polar bear issue is... I can't get worked up about that,

because even George Bush is now saying there are no polar bears left.

The chances of running into one must be almost nil.

No, not on the route you'll be going to the Pole.

There's lots of polar bears round there.

They're not interested in us, though, surely.

If they're very hungry, they will hunt anything

which smells of blood, a seal or human.

They will come from behind nearly always.

And when they actually attack you, from a standing start,

despite weighing over a ton,

they will go at the speed of an MGB accelerating.

(Richard) Then we moved on to frostbite,

and Ranulph showed us what had happened to his hand

after it had been immersed in polar water for just a few moments.

There's actually... Look at that, that's my left hand.

(Gasps)

So eventually all those red areas were amputated.

That is... if you look at the proper hand there, you can see how much is missing.

That was a three-minute mistake.

If we were... if we... in the car, say, went through a hole in the ice,

and you fell in the water at that temperature, what are the chances of survival?

If your whole body fell in and the car had gone in,

and your tent had gone in, cos you'd stowed that in the back of the car,

you could probably survive for, if there was no wind, hours,

but I'd probably prefer in those circumstances to go quickly rather than slowly.

(Richard) I was glad I'd had the talk from Ranulph,

but not so glad that I'd had a skiing lesson from Clarkson.

- What? - You're not very good.

That's because you taught me the wrong kind of skiing. This is cross-country.

You did downhill. You may as well as have taught me to play the banjo.

(Richard) And as zero hour approached, I

was also struggling to bond with the dogs.

Ah, no! There's a pile of poo there! Ah, there's a bit...

Mind you, Clarkson wasn't doing much better with his snow-driving practice.

Er...

And James was rubbish with a shotgun.

Whoa!

And then to make matters worse, we met the local weatherman.

My colleague here is convinced we're going to

fall through the ice . Have you seen the map?

You're going to Ellef Ringnes Island.

OK, now, that's all frozen to a depth of nine feet.

- Not all of it is frozen. - Hey!

The problem is is that we know only so much about that region,

and you are exploring that region at an incredible speed.

- How safe is it up there? - With a car, it's a total unknown.

There's all kinds of dangers, and you don't see

that the ice is just a few centimetres thick.

You wouldn't look any different from the top.

That's right. That's what gets most people.

I just wanted Richard to see it.

This was a man who attempted to go to the North Pole on a sledge...

People go to the Pole all the time on sledges.

...and he's being eaten.

- This happens... - Maybe he's giving him a cuddle.

OK, here is Resolute.

We begin by going south very briefly,

then we turn, er... west across this island,

then we're going across here, which is frozen sea,

on to this, which is Bathurst Island.

There could be a couple of ravines. It's quite mountainous here.

But once we've got across there, there's a

checkpoint where fuel has been dropped for us.

- Don't need that. - Dog food. Kennomeat.

That'll do.

And then we go again across frozen sea, which should be fairly easy,

except for the odd pressure ridge built up by

the force of ice coming down from the north,

and maybe the odd ice boulder field.

Then we have to skirt round this island but we cross the land here,

and the Magnetic North Pole is there 400 miles away.

- Good. - Any questions?

- No. - You're saying we leave here and go north?

Pretty much, yeah.

What's that area called as we cross Bathurst Island?

Oh, the Réserve Nationale de Faune de Polar Bear Pass.

- In my mind, it's a pass full of polar bears. - That's exactly what it is.

If we've made it to there, we're in with a good chance.

But there is still the possibility that...

well, as much as 100 yards from our goal, we fall through the ice.

So forgive me, but there's only a very remote chance that any of us make it?

Yes. Yes, it's really a question

- of what death do you fancy most? - D'you want to be polar-bear poo or fish poo?

Sitting in the car, desperately scrabbling at the windows trying to get out...

- That's nasty. - ...While... Would we freeze or drown first?

I... I would... I think we will freeze to death in the act of drowning.

- No, you'll drown first. - He's been practising his face when he dies.

That's one of them. Try another.

- (Laughs) He has. All the different faces. - He's worked out his face.

The thing about death out here is that once you're dead, you freeze.

I want my body to be found wearing the appropriate expression.

(Laughs)

Gentlemen. We start at dawn.

(Jeremy) Zero hour,

and even though our talent was small and the dangers ahead were plainly immense,

we were looking forward to the off - well, two of us were.

Look at that awful expanse of misery.

- Are you cold? - No.

- Are we falling through the ice? - Not yet.

- Well, cheer up. - How far have we got?

- I haven't set off yet. - Quite.

(Dogs howl and snarl)

- Who d'you think's gonna win this race? - I think we're all gonna die.

- (Whip cracks) - (Dogs bark)

(Shot)

Hup, hup!

- Let's go to the Pole. - (Richard) I can't believe it!

I'm going to the Pole with a dog team!

Ha-ha-ha!

- Oh, hang on, hang on. Stop, stop. - What?

Oh, and they're stuck. They're stuck!

- Forgotten my gloves. - Give me strength.

I knew he was gonna be bad on this trip. I didn't know he'd be this bad.

Hurry up.

I'm going now. Here we go.

- (Horn blasts out "Dixie") - (Jeremy) Yeah! Ha-ha-ha!

You're such a pikey.

Gently.

(Sounds horn)

We don't have time for gently now, because you forgot your gloves.

(Sounds horn)

(Jeremy) So here we are, going further north than any car had ever been before,

riding on a thin crust of ice over an ocean 1,500 feet deep.

Just us, a film crew, two lcelandic mechanics and a soldier.

An insignificant nine-man blot in the pristine white vastness.

- How far have we got? - Three kilometres.

- It's taken us three minutes? - Something like that.

You see, James. I told you we'd be there in no time.

This won't last, this sunny sky, smooth snow stuff.

- Yes, it will. - Lt won't.

Ow!

But it did last.

The sky stayed blue, the ice stayed smooth,

and we opened up a huge lead over Team Dog.

The ten-year-old that lives inside me, and there's one inside all of us,

right now is just doing cartwheels.

I'm going to the Pole.

I could cry.

It's the first time I've told Mattie, this is

only the third time I've had skis on my feet.

It's really hard.

I know lots of people ski these days, but I grew up in Birmingham.

(Richard) The car had disappeared into the distance

but Mattie told me the hare would be unstuck by ice that was too thick

or drowned by ice that was too thin,

and that the tortoise would then take the lead.

I wasn't so sure.

Oh, hell!

(Bleep)

Ugh.

He is huge. I mean, look at this.

This is about twice the size of my mitten.

Did you know, according to the ancient Inuit people,

that every inch in length of its footprint, it's a foot in its length?

- That's big. Twice the size of you. - That is big.

And they can smell you from 40 miles away.

- Shall we get back in the car? - (Chuckles) Yes.

(Jeremy) With things going so well, I tried

to get James to buy into our expedition.

I admire Hammond for doing what he's doing. I admire all Arctic explorers.

But the time has now come to say, "Let's see

how easily we could get to the top of Everest.

"Let's see how easily we could get to the North Pole."

I think we could forge a career as the world's worst explorers.

(Jeremy) Surprisingly, James was ahead of me on that one.

What would make it nice is a gin and tonic. Would you like one?

What? Yes, I'd like a gin and tonic.

Can't have a gin and tonic because we're in the Arctic Ocean.

- I'll make one. - What?

(Laughs)

- You've got gin! - I have.

Because we're in international waters, there's no drink-driving laws.

Got any ice?

(Jeremy) That's a stupid question, isn't it?

Just slow down while I slice the lemon for your gin and tonic.

Now, this is Arctic exploration!

(Horn blasts out "Dixie")

Please do not write to us about drinking and

driving, because I'm not driving, I am sailing.

(Jeremy) HHMS G&T plowed on, and although we occasionally got stuck...

our lcelandic mechanic showed me a neat trick for getting going again.

So you just rock it gently, and it just scoops a tiny bit of snow with each rock.

I was talking to the blokes who designed and built of this car last night...

- Mm. - ...And they've strengthened the trunnions,

that's where the wheels join on,

by 360 per cent.

- For why? - Terrain?

Because they knew you'd be driving it.

Whoa there! Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Halt, halt, halt, halt, halt!

Good boy.

(Richard) Our target was five to six miles an hour

but on the first day we hadn't done anything like that.

(Groans)

Ah!

Been on the go ten hours.

(Sniffs) We've done 36 miles.

(Sighs) Not good. Not good news.

Problem is, we're standing on sea ice. It means it's got salt in it.

It's incredibly grippy. The sledge can hardly move.

I've been skiing for about nine and a half hours of those ten.

- I'm broken. - (Dogs whine and bark)

(Jeremy) James and I had problems too.

We couldn't kip in the car, in case it fell through the ice while we were asleep,

so we had to build a tent.

(Jeremy) Everything about tenting is designed to make your life

just a little bit more difficult than it need be.

I would dearly like to meet the man who designed this

and took it to his boss and said, "Sir, I've made a bed,"

because you take this piece of elastic off,

it just isn't a bed, it's just not a mattress, look.

You roll it out like that,

and then you've got to go back and get the other one.

Why didn't his boss just say to him,

"Jenkins, you imbecile, it's not a bed, it's rubbish!"

Everything's crap.

(Barking, howling and whining)

(Dogs howling and whining)

Morning. This is what I wake up to every morning.

(Grunts) Frost.

All over my sleeping bag. It's frozen.

I took my balaclava off because it had frozen

all round where I was breathing through it

in my tent with the floor made of snow.

(Jeremy) With us, things were more civilized.

As you know, what I'm trying to do with this mission

is prove that Arctic exploration needn't be tough,

which brings me on to the delicate question of number twos.

What a traditional polar explorer would do is simply go out there and squat down.

Like an animal.

What I've done, though, is fitted this bumper dumper into the towbar attachment,

and now I'm going to try it out.

Oho-hoo! That's nippy.

(Jeremy) James meanwhile was on guard duty.

(Cocks gun)

(Jeremy) James, are you showing off, or are

you actually looking for bears over there?

Cos I can't run.

(Richard) They look cosy, don't they? Which is unbelievable.

But they're clever.

This coat, these are long guard hairs.

They've got lanolin and grease on them. They shed the snow.

Underneath he's got a second coat, these short fluffy hairs.

But they're not just fluff, they're hollow. So they trap warm air from his body.

They're like a million tiny little duvets on him.

And they work. In fact, they work so well, they get too hot,

and they cool their blood by sending it down to their paws,

and it's super-cooled and goes back round the body.

So he has trouble in this temperature, keeping cool.

(Howling and barking)

- (Whip cracks) - Whoo!

Oh, Bartlett, not on the ropes!

Mattie, how many poos a day do these dogs need to have?

- (Mattie) Ha-ha! I'd say two. - It's ten. It's ten each at least.

Sometimes I'd look forward to the sledge bogging down

so I could get out of the poo stream and run alongside.

Brr! Take it up.

(Jeremy) James was breaking out the elevenses.

Choc bars.

Can I have... Oh, chocolate, yes.

Look, that one's called Big.

- I'll have one. - Have a Big.

We should say, if you're watching this, this is not just gluttony.

We genuinely have been told by experts that if you are trekking across the Arctic,

you need 5,000 calories a day.

So we're only too happy to shove that much in.

I'm not certain when they told us that we needed 5,000 calories a day

that we were in a slightly warm car, sitting down,

but better to be safe.

(Jeremy) After our morning snack, James found my Jesus.

Why have you brought Jesus?

- What? - Why have you brought Jesus?

The Jesus, I thought, could sit in the car

and guide us in our hours of need, if we ever have one.

(James) He's a Jesus action figure? (Jeremy) He is. There's a map on the back.

- To guide us. - Of Galilee.

(Richard) I was now back on the skis and starting to get the hang of it.

Richard, you've got to learn how to pee on the move.

- Pee on the move? - Yeah. Oh, watch out.

I'm not on. Mattie!

(Jeremy) We had reached the vast uninhabited wilderness of Bathurst island

and were going, if anything, even faster.

Our lead over HHammond kept getting bigger and bigger.

He is the plucky Brit, and like all plucky Brits, he's going to come in second.

But at this point, he had other things on his mind.

Right in this area, seals make little houses, known locally as "aglus",

and they can have their babies in there and raise the pups all warm and safe,

unless a polar bear smashes its way in,

which is what's happened here, obviously.

Oh, look, there's its jaw bone,

with some teeth in it.

And that's the rest of the bits of seal that the polar bear didn't fancy that day.

Maybe it was full.

I hope it still is.

(James) We got bogged down in the deepest snow we'd encountered so far.

But it wasn't a problem, because the

lcelandics had another trick up their sleeves.

They told us to let nearly all the air out of the tyres.

- How's that? - It's brilliant. We should explain.

Four pounds per square inch in the tyres.

You normally run at 28 or 30 in a normal road car.

Four makes the tyre almost completely flat, so it's all very flobbery,

and you have a much wider area touching the snow and ice. That's the plan.

Once on firmer ground, we had to put air back in the tyres.

But that was OK, because the car had an on-board pump.

If only we'd had a pump for our stupid tent.

How (bleep) monstrous is this?

It's beyond... It's not normal.

I was now over 50 miles behind, but Mattie had come up with a plan.

We haven't got the edge on speed, so we need to use tactics.

This is what we're going to do.

It's now about eight o'clock at night, and we've run all day.

We've made brilliant progress.

We're going to put these guys to bed, we've chained them up.

They're going to have a sleep, but only for about three hours.

Then we'll get up again and run at night.

It's cooler for the dogs, they prefer it. They love the cold.

They can run faster and harder.

And so, in the early hours of the morning,

when the temperature had dropped to minus 35,

we roused the dogs and ran.

The silence is beautiful.

Then suddenly...

(Wild barking)

They caught our scent earlier on in the day and followed our tracks.

But whether or not he's just hanging around

and has picked up the scent now, downwind...

As I was pinned down by the bear,

Team G&T were getting under way.

Clarkson! I know it's you, you insufferable oaf!

I'm on the bloody throne.

(Jeremy) We ate up the miles...

and discussed how we'd celebrate when we made the Pole.

Of all the things you could have brought,

champagne, whatever it might be,

you've brought a tin of Spam.

Yes.

And then we, too, encountered a bear.

Oh, it's got babies!

Sweet!

Not being Attenborough, I couldn't think of anything else to say.

So we set off, and with a bit of divine guidance...

(Jesus) I am the vine, you are the branches.

If a man remains in me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit.

(Jeremy) ...We made it, uneaten, to the other side of the island.

That's fairly beautiful.

I mean, look at that! It's not bad, is it?

Absolutely astonishing!

I've been running, I don't know, all day, all night?

And now it's day or night, and I've got to sleep.

I'm confused. My body clock's broken.

(Jeremy) Our progress was so good,

I decided to find out what Hammond was making such a fuss about.

♪ Round, round, get around, I get around ♪

This is brilliant!

Yeah!

Whoa! Hang on!

Guys! Can you bring a car to tow us out?

First time at the wheel, James has managed to put it into the sea.

That is sea water.

If this car goes through, it's game over.

The car was sinking.

But luckily the lcelandics had another trick up their sleeve - a bungee rope!

The tow car would set off at a huge speed,

building energy in the elasticated rope,

which would then pull our stricken car, gently but firmly, out of the slush.

OK, Hal, are you ready?

It was brilliant.

Thank God for that!

We were free, but for the first time James and I had real problems.

We'd been warned before we set off

that constant tidal movement weakens the ice where it meets the shore.

They'd told us not to drive near the coasts,

but how do you avoid them when you're in a fjord?

Look how narrow it is here. It can't be more than a mile, if that.

They say "Don't go near the coasts," but we can't not go near the coasts.

To make things worse, the ice here was perilously thin.

This is just... Look, it's just completely covered in cracks.

Well, facing the problem, we cannot... There is no other way through here.

I mean, that's a cliff. It's a sheer cliff that way.

We cannot go on the land.

If we go back, the only way we can go is all the way back to Resolute,

which is giving up.

Based on no knowledge at all, we decided to push on in our three-ton truck.

- It's blue. I'm looking at the ocean. - I know.

If we went through the ice, our only chance of escape would be to smash the glass.

- I don't like the look of that bit. - No, I don't, either.

But if we go really fast...

- (Crunching) - (Bleep)

This is (bleep) scary!

As it dawned on us the nearest hospital was 1,500 miles away,

and the nearest rescue helicopter even further than that,

we began to understand the danger of where we were,

and what we were doing.

- If we go in here, we're dead, aren't we? - Yep.

I mean dead.

It went on like this for mile after mile.

We just drove over here and the whole thing's just collapsed.

That's nothing. Look.

Mercifully, though, the ice eventually thickened.

What has happened is, we're doing many more miles hence the wheels spin,

so we're actually doing two or three times the distance we'd anticipated.

To make matters worse, we have to find the fuel somewhere out here,

and all I've got to do that is Captain Sense Of Direction,

relying on satellite navigation, which we know, from how it works in England,

does not function properly.

- Relax. - It doesn't!

We're now very close to empty.

I find myself envious of Hammond at this point.

Mind you, he could run out of dog food.

He could run out of those big biscuit things.

Maybe he's got Winalot dumps all over the place.

Problem with the dogs, they don't work. It doesn't work as a form of transport.

It would be easier to carry myself on my back.

The sledge is full of dog food anyway.

If I just carried my tent, my socks, I could do that.

Every single morning when you get up,

you set off and they immediately have to park their breakfast... at you.

Or all over the lines that you then have to untangle.

I love dogs. I do.

Not for this. This is a stupid idea.

(Jeremy) Tomorrow we hit the boulder field, OK?

Quail's egg?

Ooh, yeah, lovely. Got any celery salt?

So we've got a choice. We can either go west, where we know it's new ice,

which is likely to be jaggedy,

or we can go straight on or east, which is old ice, which is terrifying.

We're likely to be down to two miles a day, going through that way.

Paté de foie gras?

I know it's cruel, but I really do like foie...

So, which do you prefer?

Well, this is a 24-month-old Parmigiano.

A Stravecchio, in fact. That should be superb.

- Anyway, go on. This ice? - We're likely to be down to two miles a day.

So we do have to make this decision, because

tomorrow morning we should leave early.

What would those salmon eggs go really well with?

- A crisp white, but we can dream on at that. - Like a Chablis, really.

Yes. So, do we get...

No!

No! James!

- I knew you'd like that. - Look what he's got. Wine!

- I haven't had any for days. - I knew you'd like that.

A week in Resolute and three days on the ice,

surviving on only gin!

Over at Team Dog,

we were covering good ground with the night-time running.

But I was getting knackered.

It's weird the way being very tired affects you.

Today, privately, whilst being towed along by the sledge,

I had a little weep.

I haven't done that for years.

And out here, the tears cause moisture in your ski goggles,

and it froze on the inside, so I couldn't see.

So then I had something to cry about.

After just two hours' sleep, though, the dogs were raring to go.

(Mattie) Call this one. Call on this one.

Out! Get out!

Don't touch him, cos if he's scared he'll bite anybody.

Today it would be a killer getting over the mountains on Bathurst.

And Matty's never-ending bonhomie was starting to grate.

Nothing like a couple of hours of sleep to bring your morale up.

OK! OK!

(Groans) Oh, Lord, what are you doing?

Where's my tea, Clarkson?

That's from trying to defrost our foie gras.

I put it on the fire and the tin went manky.

- Can you open the firelighters? - I'll race you.

I knew we were in for a tough day and was impatient to get going.

Very unfunny. Idiot!

My iPod has stopped working. My little camera doesn't work.

My radio transmitter for my microphone outside the car doesn't work.

Everything is being ruined by the cold.

And yet the car, everything on it, is still working fine.

It's... It is remarkable.

Which was good, because soon it came face to face with this.

This is what we'd been warned about.

A massive boulder field, full of smashed-up blocks of ice,

some the size of houses.

How the hell did nature come up with that?

It is the absolute definition of the Chaos Theory, that.

HHowever, as we were 90 miles ahead of Hammond,

and we had no idea about the horrors that lay ahead,

we entered in good spirits.

Look at it. Look at that!

It's like one of those Star Trek scenes.

You know where they land on a hostile planet...

- And that's some other sun. - Yeah, it's that.

Along the way, we stumbled across the most amazing place.

Hello?

Blimey!

Hey, you'd be glad of finding this place if you were stuck in the Arctic.

Actually, I am stuck in the Arctic.

Whoa! This is brilliant.

Beds!

Oh, yeah!

Look, I've got pencils, I've got a tin of tuna.

I've got a bulldog clip.

Some... other stuff.

This place is fantastic.

And we're allowed to stay here, according to Mattie.

But we couldn't sample its luxuries, because this was a race.

Several hours later, we hit the mountains.

(Mattie) You hold the back.

- Yeah. - Ready? Hike...

Take it up! Whoa!

All right, let's go!

(Both gasp)

The boulder field immediately started to bog us down.

We couldn't drive over the ice blocks.

That is impassable.

And between them were snowdrifts 15 feet deep.

Each time we spin the wheels we sink a little bit more.

Even the lcelandic rocking trick stopped working.

Honestly, James, never mind getting to the Pole. I can't see us getting...

- Oh, this is just unreal! - Hold it!

God Almighty!

It's very hard work, and very cold.

And quite lonely out here.

(James) The boulder field was also a maze.

We'd spend hours picking a route...

- That way. - What?

...And then hit a complete dead end.

There has to be another way through here.

Down there.

Then it got even worse.

Cock!

This is a lump of solid ice.

There's another one at the back. The car's just sunk in between them.

It isn't as though there's any help either, because the other two cars...

I can just see one, the other one's miles away, and they're both stuck, as well.

So we have to get this out somehow.

But with each passing minute, Hammond's getting closer.

Whee!

No, James, it won't do it.

Oh, that's ice, as well.

It took us three hours to chop ourselves free.

Try that.

This has just crippled us. We've been in here nearly a day.

As we got more and more lost in the ice maze,

we lost all sense of time and distance.

It's four o'clock in the morning and it's just a nightmare.

We're just covering inches. Inches per hour, literally.

By the time we pitched camp, we'd been in the boulder field for 20 hours,

and we were only one mile nearer to the Pole.

Come on!

In the meantime, we'd cleared Bathurst island.

But the brutal pace was starting to fray my temper.

Thanks. Did you want to see if it fits? I'm gonna need a new lead dog.

You can try. But there's nobody else here and I have a shovel.

I wouldn't.

At one point today I had to count the dog traces

onto the karabiner that holds them to the sled.

We untangle the leads and put them back on.

There are ten, cos there's ten dogs.

It took me three attempts. To count to ten.

After two hours' kip, we too were frazzled,

and starting to understand why no one had ever taken a car to the Pole before.

Oh, no!

- Right... - Look at that.

That is on the horizon, and that is still a lump of ice.

That means there's bad ice right out there. We're going to be in here forever.

But we had to get out, because we had limited fuel, limited food,

and in here, absolutely no chance of rescue.

My dream of a luxury trip to the Pole was in tatters.

My hands are freezing, James.

It's not going to to work.

I'm just saying, when I got down to the bottom

of that slope we were back where we were.

- I know. You don't have to remind me. - An hour and a half ago.

In eight hours, we went nowhere.

This never ends.

- Can you turn the cameras off? - Yeah.

We, meanwhile, were cruising up the fjord where May had gone through the ice.

But we had no worries... sort of.

Ow!

Because Mattie had unleashed her secret weapon.

It's a kite. Mattie puts it up and skis with it.

That saves weight and motivates the dogs.

Yeah! Now we're making progress.

Now we are making progress! Ha ha!

Gee! Gee, gee!

After two days of going nowhere, Jeremy's patience had snapped.

- Uh-oh! - Oh, my God, what is that?

I think that's the auxiliary fuel tank.

- I'll tell you something else as well. - A whole fuel tank has dropped off.

I'll tell you something else. It smells remarkably like it might be leaking.

Oh, Christ, hang on a minute. James, James! James!

The prop shaft is gouged to hell, and the fuel tank is gouged to hell.

How much is in the main tank at the moment?

If we're losing fuel, we've got to get as much as possible into the other tank.

The miles were tumbling.

We'd managed to pump some of the fuel into the good tank,

but then we hit another problem.

That's what the fuel tank did to the shock absorber when it came off.

So we've had to replace that, as well.

And we've now ended up with one full tank, the standard tank the car comes with.

The other one is empty.

Er...

It's crossed fingers, really.

The crash had also ripped a tyre off the rim.

But luckily, our lcelandics had yet another trick up their sleeves.

They filled the tyre with lighter fuel, and...

Great success!

However, we now had barely enough fuel to get to the Pole.

We were still stuck, and then came a call from Team Dog.

In the two days that we'd been trapped, he'd closed us down,

and was now in the boulder field as well.

- Come on! - Get out of there!

The news caused a bit of a row.

Sometimes, James, you have to move fast, and...

Sometimes, Jeremy, you have to move slowly.

For example, going over the soft snow, where we've been told time and again

that there are huge lumps of immobile ice, which is exactly what's caused that.

We wished we'd paid more attention at the alpine training camp.

We wished we were fitter. It really was starting to get tough.

And we were both absolutely worn out.

Oh, bloody hell!

We felt certain that Hammond was ahead,

but we had to stop and put the tent up, and it was a nightmare.

It was minus 42, we were exhausted

and Ranulph's prediction about falling out was starting to ring true.

- Hang on, hang on! - Are you in?

- No. - Just (bleep) put it in!

- Just, please, James! - I am just so unspeakably outraged with you.

You're not even doing this intelligently.

You have to push it through until it goes in the other end.

James, I'm dying here!

- I am dying. - You cannot build a tent by shouting.

Oh, (bleep)!

That, frankly, is a pathetic effort.

The dogs were also fighting, and Mattie dispensed swift discipline.

Get out! Out! Out! Out!

- Out! Out! Out! - (Baying)

I need to run 'em for a bit. This is crazy.

They mean the world to her, but they're not domestic pets.

They're pack animals, and sometimes she has to remind them who's boss.

Haul 'em! Forward, good boy!

With order restored, they blitz the boulder field, and soon we were clear.

(Richard) We've done it! We are out!

(Mattie) Whoo! Come on, guys. Let's go!

Meanwhile, we were beginning a third day stuck in the same frozen hell.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, James, James, James!

- What? - You're standing on an ice bridge.

- What's wrong with that? - You're going to cut your (bleep) arm off.

To try and speed things up, we'd broken out

a chainsaw to cut away the bigger boulders,

and some snow ladders to cross the deeper ravines.

Where I've sawn it off square, it's left a sharp edge. You have to axe it smooth.

- James? - What?

This bolt's stuck to my lips.

Oh, Christ!

(Muffled) I've got a bolt stuck.

- Oh, (bleep)! James, hurry up. - Put some coffee in your mouth.

Hurry up. It (bleep) hurts, man!

(Groans)

- That's hot! - Put it in there, put it in there.

- Shove your face in it. - Ah! Thank God for that!

Bloody hell!

- That's just going to fall down. - It's not, cos I'll dig it in.

OK.

- James? - Oh, (bleep)!

- Gee! Gee! - Right, Mattie, we are in a race.

We need to make good speed on the flat.

Do you know, over the last two days, two and a half days,

our average speed was less than a mile an hour.

I have...

- (Massive bang) - Ooh! Ow!

- Do you know what I was about to say? - No, I don't.

I was about to say we're coming to the end of the boulder field.

Look about. What can you not see?

I think we have actually got to the edge of the good ice, haven't we?

- That's very flat over there. - James, we're out.

We've made it!

It's flat!

It's so smooth!

No more going up and down.

Ohh!

It had taken three days of almost nonstop driving,

but this incredible machine had breached what

the experts said would be an impregnable wall.

It had taken on the impossible... and it had won.

I'm very sad to report something has gone wrong with the Toyota.

The washer bottles have frozen.

- 75 miles to the Pole. - I know.

And my celebratory tin of Spam.

- What if I ate your Spam? - You're not eating my Spam.

Unless you want to go home to your wife and

children with the hatchet buried in your head.

We knew that with just 75 miles to go on

flat ice, we could easily overhaul Hammond.

So, we decided to treat ourselves to a spot of tenting.

I am never, ever, ever, ever going to complain,

ever again, about the quality of a hotel.

So long as I get to a hotel and I don't have to actually build it.

"Ah, you want a room, sir? Certainly.

"Here's some bricks, some mortar, a lavatory seat, some wood, nails, a hammer,

"some carpet, some glass."

- What? - Seat the pole.

We, too, knew that the car would reel us in.

So, we kept on going.

I know I wanted to get off.

After 90 minutes' sleep, we pulled down the tent for what would be the last time.

This is what I have to put up with at night.

Sleeping next to a six-foot sinus,

that then wees in a bottle and leaves it for me to clear up.

A spot of revenge was in order.

(Gun being cocked)

Result!

There was another result, as well.

We figured out that we must have retaken the lead from Team Dog.

As they struggled on, we tried to rekindle some of the fun

that seemed to have gone missing from our journey.

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with... S.

- Snow. - Yes.

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with... S.

- Sky. - Yes.

- I spy, with my little eye... - If it begins with S, I'm going to kill you.

But then amazingly, we spotted something beginning with P.

- Is it a DC-3? - Lt is.

- Or a C-47, strictly. - What, because it's the military one?

Exactly.

- It all works, look. - Even the cables are still attached.

That's incredible. I wonder what happened here.

It's completely, perfectly preserved.

I mean, it's just astonishing.

Can you imagine surviving that plane crash and then finding yourself here?

That's a bad deal.

We'd run for 15 hours straight,

but even so, I knew we were going to lose.

Come here.

Erm...

You know, we are now the most northern people in the world.

Apart from Michael Parkinson, obviously.

James...

Is that a building? It is a building!

- Is it? - Now what have we found?

Oh, God, it's full of stuff.

Oh, this is a great bedroom.

Don't you think that's fantastic, finding that?

- James, have you forgotten something? - What?

We're in a race.

No, we're miles ahead. This is worth seeing. Nobody ever comes here.

- When do you think someone was last here? - I wonder why nobody ever comes here!

I can't believe you don't find this really interesting.

- Meanwhile, Richard Hammond tears past... - Oh, he's not going to tear past.

Look here, James!

A whole sitting room!

No, look!

- It's a cupboard full of crockery. - A cupboard? With crockery in it?

Please stop being fatuous. It's interesting.

Maybe I could kip down on this sofa.

Look, they're all frozen together.

Look what it is. This dates it. Do you know what that is?

- A saucer. - Pyrex. '70s.

- So, is this the accommodation block? - I think so, yeah.

There you go. There's a bedroom. Only one slight problem.

(Jeremy laughs)

(James) With the Pole just ten miles away,

it really did look like we'd win the race and

be the first people ever to drive there.

But then...

- it can't be. - You came this way.

It couldn't be more than a few miles deep.

But it didn't need to be,

because if Hammond was anywhere near, we were history.

Come on!

Let's go!

This way.

- Attaboy. Come on! - Gee on!

James, is the disc stuck in the snow?

- It's working. - You're side-slipping.

- Drive. - Oh, this is just unreal!

It took us three hours to do a mile.

Hold it!

And then the car beached itself on a block of ice.

We were desperate.

Haul over. I'm going to gee over. Gee.

Get the hammer down, Mattie. There's matey's car.

All right, let's go! Get up!

Stop.

I can't lose it. I can't lose this.

Raven!

Try that!

Even though we were on fumes, I threw caution to the wind

and went for it!

Strewth!

- Argh! Go on! - Get outta here!

- You're going to bust it. - I'm not.

Gee over. Gee, gee.

Come on. Get up, get up, get up!

Come on.

Haul, Raven. Haul!

We will not be beaten by a dog.

Gee on. Gee!

At last we were clear.

James, we're going to do it.

All we had to do now was match the known bearings of the Pole

with the read-out on our sat nav.

Left, left, left.

Where are you?

I expected a sort of shining beam of light coming out of the earth's core.

- If I go in this direction... - Yeah.

Right, ready for it? Ready? Ready? Ready? Ready?

- (Bleeps) - Yes!

It's here!

It's here! It's here!

Hammond!

(Phone rings)

- Oh, bugger! - (Ringing)

- Mattie, I'm off. - Where are you?

- Hammond! - Yes?

We're at the North Pole.

- You've done it? - We've done it. We're here.

- The truck got there? - Yeah, it didn't fall through the ice.

- I presume you're not very far away? - No, no.

Listen... Oh, no, wait. Sorry, mate, James wants a word. Hang on a sec.

- Hammond? - Yes, May.

May. Bad luck.

That was it, really.

Oh.

It can't be far. Yeehaa!

As James tucked into his ruined Spam,

we thought a little bit about what we'd actually achieved.

I'd set out to prove that polar exploration could be easy.

But it isn't. It's brutal and savage.

The fact is, though, that two middle-aged men,

deeply unfit and mostly drunk, had made it,

thanks entirely to the incredible machine that took us there.

They said we'd never get to the Pole,

because of the damage the car has already done to the icecap.

Perhaps, then, that's what we'd proved most of all, really.

The inconvenient truth is, it doesn't appear to have even scratched the surface.