Pole to Pole

Second leg of the journey: Palin has 12 days to cross Russia and reach the port of Odessa.

In this part of the journey Michael Palin crosses the Sudan. He crosses the Nubian desert in the north of the country and traverses a region ravaged by drought, poverty, famine and civil war. Unable to follow the line of 30 degrees east, he is forced to take a route along the border with Northern Ethiopia.

Michael Palin begins this week with a tented safari in a Kenyan game park. He travels via the Ngoronoro Crater and arrives at Lake Tanganyika.

Michael Palin fails in his attempt to get a berth on board the SA "Agulhas" on its once yearly sail to the South Pole. The search is on to find some other way of reaching the South Pole, abandoning all self-imposed restraints such as following 30 degrees east or using only surface transport.