Around the World by Train with Tony Robinson

Would you kiss a wolf?  Tony Robinson can’t recommend it highly enough. “I had this extraordinary mixture of emotions. I was partly terrified and partly absolutely adoring

this beautiful animal, and partly trying to concentrate on presenting a programme,” he says. “It was one of the highlights of my life.”

 

His wolf encounter took place in Polar Park, a Norwegian animal sanctuary inside the Arctic Circle that’s also home to bears, lynx, moose and reindeer. The wolves are not tame, but nor are they really wild. They roam vast enclosures and are accustomed to humans, so it’s one of the few places in the world where you can look a wolf in the eye in relative safety. “I was told I mustn’t wear my usual down jacket because they’d think I was a duck and rip me to pieces. And that if the wolf bit me, I wasn’t to cry out or attempt to run.”  “We waited and waited, and then I saw five wolves zigzagging towards us in that rhythmic way that packs do. When they were near, the leader of the pack danced towards me. I was doing my deep breathing – the last thing I should do was show fear – and then he just put his paws on my shoulders. When they get up like that, they are massive and a colossal weight. The muscles between their shoulders and down their back are absolutely huge. It’s like a tiger. You could sense its fierceness, but it was also very tender, and the way it licked me was lovely.”

 

 

Polar Park is Robinson’s starting point next week, which sees him take the Polar Express from Narvik on the Norwegian coast to Kiruna in Swedish Lapland – a three-hour journey past

Around the World by Train with fjords, frozen waterfalls and snowy mountains.  Over the series, he rides some of the world’s greatest railways: Argentina’s Train to the Clouds, Mexico’s Copper Canyon Railroad, Canada’s Rocky Mountaineer, the TransSiberian Railway, although the last, featured this week, was less glamorous than it sounds. “You might think that the Trans-Siberian would be like the Orient Express, full of people who look like they’re out of an Agatha Christie novel drinking cocktails, but it’s not. It’s the cheapest form of long-distance transport available in Russia and a lot of people can’t afford the food, so they take three days’ food. There are no curtains across the compartments, so I saw more smelly socks and pairs of pants than I really needed to. It was quite an adventure.”

 

The most luxurious journey was on board theAndean Explorer, a five-star hotel-on-wheels that cruises the Andes, from the baroque city of Arequipa to Cusco, the former capital of the Inca Empire. The Belmond-owned train boasts an observation car, a piano bar and a spa. Robinson’s plush cabin came with a double bed and private bathroom, and costs over £3,000 for the two-night trip. “Anyone who’s been on a sleeper will know that it’s difficult to get to sleep because they’re so bumpety. At night, it pulls into a siding, so you also get the luxury of not being bumped to bits. And I could have breakfast delivered to my door in the morning with a vase of flowers.”

 

But for the former Time Team presenter, the high point of the South American leg was fulfilling an ambition: visiting the mountaintop Inca citadel near Cusco. “Machu Picchu is for archaeologists nowadays what the Pyramids were to the archaeologists of the 19th century. They conjure up so many emotions – such a feeling of history, of earlier peoples and their ability to make things in ways you can hardly imagine. That was very moving.”

 

How is he spending his days now that travel of any sort is inadvisable? “The last long car journey for my wife and me was to Derby to collect a dog from the RSPCA. Her name is Holly Berry

and our task for the next few months while we’re incarcerated is to is to bring her back to health and happiness.” He wonders if his desire to get a dog was somehow inspired by his brush with a wolf. “Maybe subconsciously. That wolf was just the most glorious canine you can possibly imagine.” 

 

 

 

The Foreign Office is advising against all travel overseas due to the coronavirus pandemic. For the latest advice, go to gov.uk/coronavirus.