About Charley

Charley's first big adventure was the iconic award winning series Long Way Round (2004) biking overland from London to New York via Europe and Asia alongside Ewan McGregor.

Charley returned to the saddle with actor and good friend Ewan McGregor in 2007 for the Long Way Down, which saw the duo travel from John O’Groats to Cape Town. This also proved an instant hit and produced a best-selling book and DVD.

Charley’s love of motorcycles and racing has also led him in 2006 to take part in one of the most demanding and dangerous motor races on earth, the Dakar Rally, documented in the TV series and best selling book Race to Dakar. With fatalities most years at the Dakar, it was a big risk to take on this challenge, and Charley seriously damaged his hands in a crash in the desert. Charley took on the role of team manager and managed to get one rider of the team of three, Simon Pavey, over the finish line, which in a race where an average of only forty percent of entries finish, was still a considerable result.

One of Charley’s biggest challenges to date, captured in the best selling DVD By Any Means (2008), saw him travel solo from Ireland to Australia using any method of transport he could find. Covering some of the world’s most exciting and dangerous terrains including Nepal, Iran, Thailand, and Indonesia using modes of transport ranging from trains to container ships, dugout canoes, cement barges and solar cars. Charley ended the adventure on his best-loved form of transport, the motorcycle, with a visual feast of a convoy of over three hundred bikes across Sydney’s spectacular Harbour Bridge.

In the wake of the success of By Any Means Charley undertook By Any Means 2 in 2009 travelling from Sydney to Tokyo.

Away from the adventuring, Charley is heavily involved in charity work. Charley has been an ambassador for Unicef alongside Ewan McGregor for many years now, and describes Unicef as “a fantastic bunch of people with hearts and capability absolutely in the right place”.

Charley, very publically dyslexic himself, is the president of the Dyslexia Action and is always pushing to use any influence to help motivate individuals who are dyslexic. Charley passionately believes that “this issue is often overlooked, and so the more attention we can bring to it, the better chance people have of dealing with it and overcoming it.”

Charley is furthermore a fervent supporter of Help for Heroes. In December 2009 he went to Afghanistan to visit the troops for Christmas and was overwhelmed by the courage of the soldiers.

Having had testicular cancer last year, Charley is an ambassador for Movember and is very keen to increase awareness of men’s health.