Original subtitles

I've always travelled.

As an army brat, we were always off on long, long journeys

around the globe, following the regiment.

Now I can choose the destinations,

and the most thrilling places to me are off the beaten track.

- Wow. - Wow.

Grand hotels are wonderful, but I love living in huts and tents...

It's lovely.

.. however tough the terrain, and getting back in touch with nature.

Yes, this is it.

I come from a time where travelling wasn't about selfies and texting.

I must be the only person in the world

who still sends postcards.

And now I'm sending my favourite moments from my travels to you,

no stamp required.

When you think about the river Nile, you might think about camels,

and the pyramids and date palms and Egypt.

But the Nile is far, far longer than that...

In fact, there are two sources of the Nile, and the Nile,

to make it clearer, is called the White Nile,

the bit that flows through Egypt and so on.

The Blue Nile rises in Ethiopia

and pours out of Lake Tana and joins the White Nile in Khartoum.

The waters don't even meet. You can see them flowing side by side

until they become the mighty river itself.

We wouldn't shortchange you. We're going to go to both sources.

But first I'm going to take you to Ethiopia,

and so we started here in Lake Tana.

This is one of Africa's largest canyons,

a 250-mile-long gorge.

It's absolutely thrilling. We are now flying over the deep,

deep gorges and at the bottom of it the Blue Nile.

I've got to say it doesn't look blue at all.

It looks like the kind of colour of vanilla fudge or something.

This gorge has been hewn by the colossal amount of water

that thunders through here during the flood.

Then the water turns a dark blue,

giving the river its name, the Blue Nile.

At the top of the gorge is Ethiopia's largest lake.

Sixty rivers pour down the mountainsides into Lake Tana.

Nestled on the side of the lake is the town of Bahir Dar.

The country is full of surprises.

Its culture is one of Africa's oldest and most diverse,

with influences from the ancient Egyptians and Arabia.

It has its own alphabet and language,

called Amharic, spoken nowhere else...

.. and it even has its own calendar

putting it seven years behind the rest of the western world.

Their culinary treat is a sort of pancake.

Known as injera, this is Ethiopia's national dish.

The only thing about these injera pancakes is that they have...

they have a sort of look of tripe about them, which can put you off,

particularly when they come rolled up like wet flannels.

Like something you'd cleaned the floor with and hadn't wrung out.

You don't eat them hot like we eat pancakes hot -- you let them cool down.

Again, something which... what a shame.

I would have loved it hot with maybe some thick cream and honey, but no!

You can eat Injera with pickles and spices, or in my case,

I've gone for potato stew.

Thank you. ~

Injera has a sour, nutty taste, but actually it melts in the mouth.

- It's actually delicious. - Is it?

Write journals if things are important.

You think you are going to remember and you don't.

It's only reading this that I realise how much I'd forgotten about this.

There are more than 20 monasteries on islands in Lake Tana.

Most were built in the Middle Ages

but remained hidden from the outside world until the 1930s.

We attended an early morning service. We had to get up terribly early.

I can't tell you how early we rise on some of these shoots.

It's usually about 4:00. It was cold.

We wait until the 20-year-old deacon brings me into the church.

- Deacon... - Hello, Joanna.

- Thank you very much for meeting me. - Welcome to here.

The monks do a shuffling hokey-cokey dance,

each with a jingling hand piece.

Drums play, and they schlink-schlonk their little tambourines, schlink-schlonk.

I buy one later for the maestro, who's my husband.

Then they process around the building and return their treasures.

They marched the treasures around. They were very, very old,

extraordinary bits of armour and banners and chainmail.

The holiest is in the centre,

containing a copy of the tablets of stone

bearing the Ten Commandments.

The originals in the Ark of the Covenant

are reputed to be in Axum, which is in Ethiopia, hidden.

Utterly thrilling.

What we learnt there too was that the patron saint of Ethiopia

is St George. Familiar?

You bet. They were all celebrating and it was terribly important.

We'd been there, actually, filming for about six hours,

and it was still only just after breakfast,

but I took this label off my beer bottle

because we thought, "We will toast St George in our own way."

I'm quite good at drinking beer on boats.

Go.

The source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia

is a very, very holy place.

Some people say that river is actually the river that flowed

out of the Garden of Eden. I was so thrilled to be there.

So sacred are the waters at the source

that they are said to have healing properties.

In the same way that pilgrims go to Lourdes,

Ethiopians travel hundreds of miles to this spot.

"Welcome to Gish Abay church, the source of the Blue Nile."

So, I've arrived here. They've drawn a mountain.

We're not exactly on a mountain, but we're in an alpine pasture.

It says "the treatment of the majority", which could be me,

and I think they do exorcisms here too.

Now, it's a tradition here to buy a water container

and to go down and get a little bit of Nile water and to be blessed.

Is this the church down there?

- *** - Yeah, and when I go, I take my... my can.

Yes, if you wanted to fetch holy water from the church,

I can help you bring it, if you want that?

Well, I do want that. Will you come with me? Thank you.

My new friend introduces me to the priest, Father Birhanu.

- Greetings. - Hello, Father.

He first came here because he had malaria

and wanted to be cured by the waters.

~

~

~

Father Birhanu takes me down to the source.

I'm told that here the Blue Nile bubbles up through a spring.

- You say, "Ab." - Ab.

- ~ - ~

Then as well as giving a blessing,

Father Birhanu unexpectedly decides to baptise me.

Welete Tsadik means 'child of the righteous'.

- Well, that was absolutely lovely. - Thank you.

I would like Father to write my name, 'the Child of the Righteous'.

Will you write that for me in Amharic so I can translate it into English?

~

Thank you.

That's me, and actually, I can use that in London for any sort of...

If I'm arrested for any misdemeanours,

I'll just flash them this fabulous yellow card.

I'll say, "Source of the Nile, buddy, I'm through."

"On the journey back over the water we all rinse our hands,

Kiff and Will their heads in the holy water

which has been blessed for me, which I had decanted into a plastic 1.5-litre bottle."

We all had to bless ourselves.

Before leaving Ethiopia,

I travel higher up into the Semien Mountains.

I think this is the most extraordinary country I've ever been to.

Nowhere gives any clue of what it's like.

I've been to Eritrea before, in the north,

I've been to Sudan in the west, I've been to Kenya in the south,

and I've sailed up and down the Red Sea,

and none of them gives the faintest inkling

of what happens here in Ethiopia.

It is absolutely staggering.

This is the engine room of the Nile.

This is where the great flood is propelled from.

It goes for miles and miles and miles.

Next I've got postcards from some fantastic beasts in Uganda,

and also from Rwanda, the longest source of the river Nile.

Now we're in Uganda.

I've been on safari in Africa before and I've camped out

and seen all kinds of fabulous animals,

but on this trip I learnt more than ever before.

And what's more, I came almost face to face with...

.. a shoebill.

For the first time on my journey I'm going to get a chance

to watch the impressive animals that live in the Nile.

My guide is Zimbabwean -- Andy Ault.

This is a fantastic group of hippo down here.

There must be at least 60, maybe 70,

maybe even 80 of them.

'Hippopotamus' is ancient Greek for 'river horse'.

Until very recently biologists thought they had evolved

from the pig family, but now research indicates

that their closest living relatives are whales and porpoises.

How long can they stay under water?

Usually six to eight minutes is about a good average.

If they're stressed or frightened of something,

then they might stay under for up to 15.

- There's a calf, a tiny little calf. - Yes.

If you watch, you might see the ears come up and spin around.

It's just so incredibly exciting sitting here with them

disappearing, and you can't really tell where they're gonna pop up.

And suddenly this huge head the size of a small car arrives,

ears going like that.

The swamp provides a haven for animals,

including Uganda's largest, rarest and most extraordinary bird.

I never thought we'd see one of these.

(It's a shoebill.)

You'll just have to believe me when I tell you this bird

is as tall as my shoulder and lives for up to 50 years.

That's extraordinary. It's literally like seeing a pterodactyl or something.

Just phenomenal. Strange, almost animal face.

Doesn't really look like a bird at all.

Great soft, grey head. They're very rare.

Then we spot the creature that's eluded us all the way along the Nile.

The beautiful, but quite dangerous Nile crocodile.

- Andy. - Yeah.

Why has it got its mouth wide open?

- Temperature regulation. - Temperature regulation.

You'll see them quite often, just particularly on a hot day,

they'll be lying there with their mouth open to let the heat dissipate.

I'm following Tapan Rasheed...

.. to see a rhino called Bella and her baby,

which is not even two months old.

I think I just saw her. Look.

Look at the size of her.

There's the baby.

Here at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

50 rangers look after six adult rhinos and their three calves.

Tapan and his team guard Bella and her calf Augusto round the clock.

They're coming closer.

Go back, go, go back!

Augusto, go back. Bella, go back. Go back. Please cool down.

Down. Down, please, down, down.

Don't think they're carrying guns to protect us.

It's to protect the rhinos from poachers.

- You just calmed her down just then? - Yeah.

Yes, she smell me and she hear my voice

and say, "Ah, we have to be cool."

Because their eyesight is not very good, is it?

No. No. They don't see very far,

but are very, very active to smell and to hear things.

You can see the ears, that's like antennae.

- Listening and listening. - Yeah, listening to people.

Here she comes. La, la, la. Just walking very smoothly away.

OK, Tapan.

Go back. Augusto, go back. Go back.

Go. Go back. Cool down.

Cool. Cool. Bella, cool.

The reason I'm so scared is that as a mother,

Bella's job is to kill us if we get too close to her baby.

It seems awfully cowardly but I just sort of...

Always anxious around big wild animals because they are unpredictable.

Here comes Augusto again, an extremely disobedient

- and very big baby... - Go back. Go.

- .. with a mother who's massive. - Go back, go.

It's the sweetest thing. He seems to be eating the mud now.

Tapan just said nobody has ever seen that before,

Bella wallowing like that, nobody has seen that before.

An immense rhino fart!

Let's go.

And finally we got to Rwanda to find the longest source of the Nile,

as discovered by Cam McLeay and two of his New Zealand colleagues.

Cam is the most extraordinary man, unbelievably tough,

smiling all the time, bright as a button, optimistic.

From the edge of the Nyungwe Forest

we get ready to walk the final three miles

to the source.

I'm just going to change this,

what I've got in here, put on my boots.

Actually, I wasn't gonna show you this now but I have to.

And it's my little man in a boat.

And I want to set him off on the Nile,

on a journey back, the journey that I've I done.

There.

- Shall we go? - Yeah.

I'm following in your footsteps.

- Oh, look, Cam. - Wow.

- We're going up there? - We're going up there.

I'm keeping a fair bit behind you

because I can see with your manly slashings...

Yeah, give me a bit of space.

We still have our river flowing beautifully here.

Do you know, this is the first Nile water I've really drunk.

Everyone said, "Drink from the Nile." It's completely pure, sweet water.

- Fantastic, isn't it? - Wow.

I've got to tell you about the last day of filming.

We'd been told that you just had to walk through the jungle

to find the source of the Nile, and we think, 'This is going to look a bit tame.'

Maybe it's a little path, walk for 200 yards and go, 'There's the source of the Nile.'

It could not have been more different.

It was a primaeval jungle. Everything had fallen down.

It was swamps. We were crawled over by biting ants. I think they were soldier ants.

This is just in case you think

we're all living in a five-star hotel and strolling down

and people putting something loose round you, give you a cup of tea.

Not so! We were tough explorers.

Crikey.

Oh, no, oh, no.

Whoops. Hang on, I've got my boot stuck.

Are you back in there, are you ready?

Hang on a second. I'm not quite in.

- Can you, sir? - I'll try to assist anyway.

Thank you very much.

That's one of the saddest things you've ever had to do. Thanks, Cam.

OK, we're getting very close now

to the longest source of the Nile, is just up here.

How extraordinary this is.

Look, perceptible water.

It's perceptible because I'm perceiving it.

- Hang on a sec. - I've got you on this end.

- There we are. Got my knee. - Right.

So this is it, we've made it?

OK, OK. We've followed a false lead.

I lost the water down there,

so I was going to look for it again,

but I think we may lose it completely just up here.

So let's go back, and we'll try up the other one...

.. look for our perceptible flow.

Three-and-a-half hours later...

- Well done. - Lovely.

- Here we are. - Oh, my gosh.

- We can go no further. - Look at that.

And look at the perceptible flow,

just like a little crocodile's nose.

Just a little drip.

To tell you the truth, I never thought we'd get here.

My little guy in his little boat,

because I wanted him to do the journey

that we've done, but in reverse, the proper way,

following the flow of the water, which starts here,

a journey of 4,199 miles, the longest river in the world.

I mean, I think rushing water is going to come here later,

and I'm going to leave him here, I'm going to settle him here.

So when the next rain falls, he'll start his journey.

He's thinking, pensive, thinking of his long journey ahead.

I think I'm just going to help him over the first bit into that bit.

No, he says, "Don't push me, I'm thinking."

OK, well, just a little bit, there, you could almost feel he was floating.

You could almost feel he was... You could almost.

No.

I think that I'm now stopping the source of the Nile

by kneeling in it. There we are.

Oh, God, Cam, look what I've done to your river. I'm so sorry.

Sorry, I'm so sorry.

People across the world, since the programme's gone out, have said,

"How's the guy in the boat? Do you think he got there? How far is he?

Do you think he's reached Khartoum? Is he crossing Lake Nasser?

Maybe he's sailing up the big Nile past the pyramids?"

And you go, "Guys, he was in a little wooden boat this big.

When I put him down he was pretty much stuck in the mud."

So the answer is "Probably not, darlings.

It's not really how it works."