A Walk on the Wild Side Grand Tours of Scotland

Some people come to Scotland to explore the past.

Some come to witness the spectacular landscapes.

But increasingly, many come here to enjoy the splendours of nature.

For me, there's nowhere else like this in the whole of the UK,

and if you want to experience the wild side of life,

then this is where you have to be!

But getting to Scotland's spectacular locations

has always been something of a challenge for the average tourist.

In Victorian times, Black's Picturesque Guide To Scotland came to the rescue,

suggesting a multitude of different routes across the country.

For the more intrepid tourists, Black's included a variety of long-distance walks

that led adventurous Victorians into the wilderness.

Using Black's as my inspiration and guide,

I'm, travelling off the beaten track, crossing the country from coast to coast,

and retracing the steps of these first nature lovers.

My Grand Tour across Scotland begins on a remote peninsula

overlooking the Dornoch Firth,

heads towards historic Cromarty,

and then takes the high road into a Caledonian pine forest,

on an ancient route to the west coast.

I'm starting my journey at a place that's very familiar to me.

Tarbat Ness Lighthouse, overlooking the Dornoch Firth.

These treacherous rocks claimed numerous lives before Tarbat Ness lighthouse

was built in 1830.

At 40 metres, it's one of the tallest in Scotland.

Seeing this old lighthouse brings back all kinds of memories.

When I was 17, Tarbat Ness was, for a brief period, the place I called home.

Back in 1978 I had a job with the Northern Lighthouse Board,

and Tarbat Ness was one of the lighthouses I was stationed at.

When I worked here in the 1970s, the principal lighthouse keeper lived in this house here,

and his assistant lived in this one.

Now it was my dubious pleasure to be accommodated over there in the bothy.

Now, I have to say that tending the light here wasn't perhaps

the most glamorous or interesting of lifestyles,

but occasionally the monotony was broken by a visiting tourist,

who was curious to find out what we did here and how we lived.

And it was usually left up to me to show them around.

This brings back memories.

Of course, all the tourists wanted to go to the top of the tower.

But as we climbed the steps, they little realised

that their dirty boots were making more work for me.

There are 219 steps in this lighthouse.

Now, that's a number that's seared into my memory,

because when I worked here it was my job to clean them all, by hand,

with cotton waste soaked in paraffin.

And because the fire regulations were such that you weren't allowed to take the paraffin with you,

I had to soak it in the basement and climb 219 steps,

clean 5 steps, descend 214 steps,

and repeat the process over and over again

until the principal keeper was satisfied with my handiwork.

Oh, happy days(!)

'Being a lighthouse keeper wouldn't be for everyone,

'and not just because of all the stairs.

'There was a long tradition of discipline and rigorous timekeeping

'that, as a teenager, I found pretty hard going.'

Now, this is completely different from when I worked here.

Back in my day, a paraffin lamp stood there,

and it was my job to maintain the pressure inside.

It was also my job to wind up the clockwork mechanism that kept the whole thing turning.

And when tourists came up here and saw all of that,

they were absolutely amazed - it seemed so primitive and old-fashioned.

And of course it was, and I was part of a tradition that was at least a century old.

Now, that makes me feel pretty ancient!

Today, modern lighthouses are fully automated,

meaning there's no longer any need for keepers to be stationed here.

But one thing that hasn't changed are the stunning views

over the Dornoch Firth to the North, and the Cromarty Firth to the south,

which is where my route takes me next.

These are The Soutars,

two massive headlands that guard the entrance to the Cromarty Firth.

Black's describes this arm of the sea as

"a first-rate harbour or refuge, being completely sheltered."

But many of today's visitors come to catch sight of something

that's not even hinted at in my old Victorian guidebook.

From May to September, small boats take tourists across the waters of the Cromarty Firth

in search of the much loved but elusive Tursiops truncatus,

better known as the bottlenose dolphin.

Oh, missed it!

We're very lucky to have a resident population

of these bottlenose dolphins up here,

and it's lovely to be able to see them 12 months of the year.

Photographer and naturalist Charlie Phillips works for

the world's leading dolphin conservation society.

Charlie has been studying these amazing animals since the 1980s.

His remarkable pictures brilliantly demonstrate

just why they're such crowd pleasers.

How many dolphins live in this area?

The entire population, just below 200, maybe about 195, 196.

-200!

-Yeah, but that's spread out all the way down the east coast of Scotland.

That's a large number.

It's not really, not when you're talking about a population of big predators.

How long have the dolphins been in this area?

We can look back historical records to about the late 1800s.

This being part of the North Sea, there probably have always been citations of some sort going about,

but we're not quite sure exactly when these dolphins turned up in the first place.

-It's extraordinary to think that these animals, these wild animals, are just off our coast.

-Yeah.

A lot of people have never seen them before. I didn't realise that.

Yeah, we don't... You know, you really don't need to go very far around the coast of Scotland

before you'll see something that makes your jaw drop, believe me.

I've been doing this a long time now,

and every time I see these beautiful, big animals, my heart beats a little bit faster.

You can come up to the Highlands on holiday

and be confronted with bottlenose dolphins maybe ten feet from you.

That's something that's going to remain in your brain for a long, long time.

I love them because they are big, intelligent predators that have a complicated life.

So they've got quite a tough job just living day-to-day, and I admire them for what they do.

Well, I hope we see some more today.

'And I'm also hoping Charlie can give me some tips on how he manages to take such amazing pictures.'

I keep missing it.

There's one thing spotting a dolphin,

and there's another matter entirely capturing it on film.

Yeah, getting them on camera can be tricky.

Sometimes it's luck. There are certain animals that you can almost predict what they're going to do,

but every now and again they do stuff that you've just never seen before.

'These northern dolphins are a hardy bunch.

'The cold waters mean they need more blubber than their southern cousins in warmer seas.

'An adult male can grow to a staggering four metres long.'

I keep missing it!

'But this doesn't make it any easier for me to get my picture.

'I'm beginning to think they're teasing me.'

Saying farewell to Charlie and the dolphins,

I head back to dry land to continue my journey.

My next port of call is Cromarty.

In Black's time, this was a bustling port,

and today much of its historic architecture has been preserved.

The herring boats which once made this a boom town are long gone,

but according to my copy of Black's, Cromarty's chief claim to fame

is as the birthplace of a Victorian celebrity.

My guide says, "An Obelisk has been erected near the town to the memory of Hugh Miller,

"the author of Old Red Sandstone and other well-known works."

Now, I have to confess my ignorance, here.

I've never actually heard of Hugh Miller before,

or of his celebrated book, Old Red Sandstone.

So I think it would be perverse of me in the extreme

to turn down the opportunity for a little enlightenment.

Hugh Miller was a stonemason and self-taught geologist.

His famous book, The Old Red Sandstone, published in 1841,

documented his discovery of fossils in sedimentary rocks,

proving that now extinct species had inhabited the earth many millions of years ago.

Miller's work was enormously influential,

and his importance is recognised by scientists and scholars today.

'But to most people, he's largely forgotten,'

'so to find out more about him, I've come to the cottage where he was born.'

-Alix.

-Hello, welcome to Hugh Miller's birthplace cottage.

-Thanks very much.

-Come in.

'It's now a museum dedicated to his life and work,'

'and Alix Powers-Jones is the curator.'

-A lovely wee room!

-It is, but watch your head. It's very low ceilings.

Alix, I know next to nothing about Hugh Miller. But why should I, who was he?

Hugh Miller was an amazing man, a remarkable man,

because he was a writer, a geologist, a stonemason,

a campaigner, a social commentator.

He observed everything around him,

and he wrote about everything around him.

He'd got a big wash of red hair and mutton chop whiskers,

and he strode through Edinburgh with a shepherd's plaid, a tartan,

tossed over his shoulder, and he would stride through Edinburgh.

-Was this for sartorial effect?

-I think so, yes, he just sort of...

This was his persona that he created.

He had a real character.

And was born right here in this cottage?

He was, he was born upstairs,

one of four generations of Miller, in a tiny little room.

As a child, Hugh Miller listened to his mother's stories in this cottage,

and developed a love of folklore that fired his imagination.

Venturing out into the landscape where these tales were set,

the young Hugh became fascinated with the plant life and geology that he found there.

He wrote, "Life itself is a school, and nature always a fresh study."

But at the height of his fame, Miller's life ended tragically.

Alix, what happened to Hugh Miller?

Well, it was very sad. He shot himself.

He suffered from very severe headaches.

Modern doctors today, reading what he wrote,

think that he had a brain tumour.

But he was in very extreme pain, he didn't know what was happening.

-Uh-huh.

-And in extreme circumstances people do extreme things.

Was he celebrated in death as he had been in life?

He was. His funeral in Edinburgh brought the city to a standstill.

People acknowledged the impact that he had made upon their lives,

and this place, the thatched cottage, became a museum in 1890.

So only about 40 years after he died.

So even then, a generation later, his importance had been recognised.

Absolutely, people wanted to know, they wanted to come and see where he'd lived, where he'd been born.

Some of the first tourists to come to Cromarty would have come here

-to have a look at the birthplace of Hugh Miller.

-They would, yes, absolutely.

-And they're still coming, I presume.

-And they are still coming.

Hugh Miller wanted people to see the world anew,

to see the world through fresh eyes.

And his passion for the environment teaches us how everything is connected.

And anyone who enjoys tramping through the countryside today

isn't just following in Miller's footsteps, but also sharing his vision.

Inspired by Hugh Miller's passion for exploring wild places,

I'm leaving the east coast behind and heading inland

towards the Highlands.

Glen Affric is often described

as "the most beautiful glen in Scotland."

And on a day like today, who can disagree?

Ahead of me lies 30 miles of ancient woodland,

spectacular glens, lochs, rivers and hills.

the landscape here was the inspiration for many Victorian artists,

most famously Edwin Landseer,

who used this setting for his best-known painting, Monarch of the Glen.

And to get me over the mountains, I've chosen a traditional mode of transport.

PONY NEIGHS

Good boy, Come on.

'Meet Rogie, my companion for this part of my journey.

'Rogie knows this path well, although I have to say he has a mind of his own,

'preferring the heather verge to the stony track.

'The trees we are riding among are the largest surviving remnant

'of the once-mighty Caledonian pine forest

'that stretched across Scotland after the last Ice Age.

'And Black's paints a dramatic picture.

'"Here, you can get a sense of its primeval grandeur.

'"Gigantic birch trees and towering, pyramidal firs cast their sombre shadows

'"over the restless stream, which brawls below."'

Come on, Rogie!

'In Victorian times, the horse was indispensable to visitors travelling to the remote Highlands.

'Black's even offers advice on the average cost of rental.

'A horse like Rogie would set you back six or seven shillings for the day.'

When you realise that the average weekly wage for a manual labourer back then

was just six shillings, you get an idea of how wealthy you had to be

to be able to afford the privilege of horsepower.

And for those that could afford it, riding high gave them an added sense of superiority,

as they could enjoy the pleasure of looking down on mere pedestrians.

Walk on boy, come on.

Trying to keep Rogie on the straight and narrow, I continue up the glen.

PONY NEIGHS

The scenery gradually changes, and trees give way to more open country.

-Hi, Sasha.

-Hi there.

-Good to see you.

'In this wild and remote location, I meet up with trekking guide, Sasha Pocock,

'to ride the glen together, as Highlanders have done for centuries.'

It's a fantastic way of seeing the countryside Sasha!

Oh, the best way of seeing the countryside.

-And what sort of animals are we actually riding today?

-These are both Highland ponies.

And these would have been the horses that Victorian tourists

-would have hired for their six shillings a day?

-Exactly.

What would they have been used for in the old days, then?

They'd have been used for a variety of things.

-They'd have been used as local transport...

-Uh-huh?

..to get people to and from, if they went down to the local town,

-you know, maybe once or twice a year.

-Right.

-They'd have pulled a cart.

They'd have also used them for a lot of their own farm work,

-ploughing, dragging firewood...

-Right.

-..taking the peats in for burning on the fire.

-So the all-round horse?

-All-round, very, very much, yeah.

'Native to the Highlands, these creatures needed to be hardy.

'They have thick coats to protect them from the harsh weather,

'and a natural sure-footedness to carry them over bog and scree.

'They were first put to work on crofts, working the land or carrying heavy loads.

'They had other uses, too - sometimes they smuggled whisky, or went to war.

'King Robert The Bruce is said to have faced the English astride a Highland pony.

'Later, these hardy beasts carried the gentry into the hills to hunt,

'and bring back the deer they'd bagged.

'One of their most endearing qualities is their good nature,

'and, you know, I think Rogie and I may have finally come to an understanding.'

-It's about control. Who's in charge.

-Yep.

-I'm in charge, Rogie.

-You're in charge.

-Don't you forget it.

-You're the boss.

PONY NEIGHS

'But it's a real treat to ride a creature so well-suited to the wilds of Scotland.

'It's also a pleasure that's enjoyed by increasing numbers of folk who go pony trekking.'

-Now, you run a trekking business?

-Yes.

-What kind of people are interested in that?

You get mainly people who don't get to experience this sort of wilderness,

so it's people from the cities and towns who really want to escape into the wilderness for a few days.

-This really is wilderness, isn't it?

-Yes, oh, there's nothing.

-No mobile phones.

-No reception, no.

-It's like... heaven!

-It is heaven.

'Thanks to Sasha and my faithful steed, Rogie, I've made real progress up Glen Affric.

'But now it's time to say farewell and continue my journey on foot.'

-Thanks. Cheers!

-Thank you very much!

The track I'm following is an ancient right of way.

For centuries it was used as a drove road, and as a coffin road,

so-called because mourners and pallbearers used it to carry their dead

to distant burial grounds.

But in the past, the people who lived in the glen were forced off the land

to make way for sheep, and then later, for deer.

The fact is, people have not always been made to feel welcome in these parts.

In Victorian times, simple pleasures like tramping the hills

fraught with all kinds of difficulties.

I don't just mean boggy ground or having to ford a stream.

Now, back then, access to a wilderness area like this

was something of an issue for all but the very wealthy.

-Mr Simpson, Sir, I doff my cap.

-Hello, Paul.

'Historian Eric Simpson has walked these hills since he was a young man.

'He's climbed all the Munros, and now in his 80s, he's tackling some for a second time.

'Eric has fully exercised his right to roam,

'but there was a time when the rich tried to keep the riffraff off this land.'

Now, Eric, back in Victorian times, this was just one vast estate was it not?

Indeed, yeah. A lot of the Scottish landowners needed extra money, and they were quite willing,

either had to sell their estates or to lease them to wealthy businessmen

and industrialists from the south.

They'd taken over this area because they had the shooting rights.

-Uh-huh.

-And they didn't want the deer

scared off their piece of land onto their neighbour's.

And there was one particular incomer called Walter Winans,

he was a very rich American, and he leased a large part of the Highlands, this area included,

and he tried to prevent other people from coming in to what he considered his territory.

He employed a large number of gillies and keepers

-to act as sentries in different places.

-Right.

-Some of them even were in sentry boxes.

-You're joking?

-No, no.

And anyone who strayed from the right of way,

then his strong-arm men could take action.

Was that quite a common thing in those days,

that landowners of his ilk, were they very protective of their property?

Yes, yes. Fortunately you had people who tried to

open up access to the hills,

that they looked at the existing rights of way

and saw how the rights were being eroded,

and they took legal action to prevent landowners from blocking them.

'Campaigners undertook a series of court battles,

'challenging the legal right of landowners to refuse access.

'In 1847 they scored a significant victory.'

Glen Tilt, the Duke of Atholl resisted a party of students from Edinburgh University,

botany students, led by their Professor, picking up flowers and plants - oh, dear(!)

-Pretty innocent thing to do!

-How terrible(!)

And the Duke of Atholl was there with his gillies to prevent them, and this led to a legal case

which asserted the right of botanists and people like us to go through Glen Tilt.

So now we do have the right to walk along this track?

Yes, they've... Early walkers, like us today,

-regard it as part of our heritage.

-Exactly.

And it's a landscape that we want to see,

and want to encourage people to come into and enjoy.

Everyone should have this experience because it is just so glorious.

'As more and more people exercised their newly-won rights to explore the remote wilderness,

'many also sought a bed to rest their weary bones for the night.

'And even here, miles from anywhere,

'we are greeted by the welcome sight of the Glen Affric Youth Hostel.'

We're in the middle of nowhere,

there are no proper roads anywhere around,

and that place claims to be the most remote Youth Hostel in the whole of the UK.

I hope it's not haunted!

'The next morning, refreshed and rejuvenated,

'I'm ready to continue my journey westward to the coast.

'The right to roam encouraged more people to head out into the hills,

'and it began a new craze,

'which was seen as not only good for the body,

'but also good for the soul.'

Throughout the 19th century, there was a growing, church-inspired movement

to get the young up and off their knees and out tramping the hills.

'Rambling was all the rage, and the Scottish Ramblers Alliance was formed.

'But walking in the countryside was no mere country pursuit -

'it was to be educative, social and highly moral.

'Mixed walking was frowned upon.

'Falling in step with a member of the opposite sex

'might lead innocent ramblers to stray from the path of righteousness!

'But it was in the early 20th century that walking really took off,

'and everyone, regardless of class or gender,

'could enjoy the benefits of a right good yomp.'

To boost morale and help focus the mind,

clubs encouraged wholesome, merry singing to keep good Christian souls in step,

and this is one of them entitled The Foot Traveller's Song.

-HE RECITES:

-On foot I gaily make my way. Hurrah!

Where mountains bare And meadows gay. Hurrah!

But he who is not of my mind Another travelling mate may find

For he may not go with me. Hurrah!

Tra-la, la-la, la-la!

I don't think that's quite the right tune, but you get the idea.

'My spirits raised by the jolly traveller's song,

I'm making the final push to journey's end,

heading for the shores of Loch Duich

and an icon of Scottish tourism.

'This is Eilean Donan castle.

'It's an image that's adorned millions of shortbread tins the world over.

'There's been a castle here since the 13th century,

'but it was completely destroyed following the failed Jacobite rising of 1715.

'What stands here today was actually built in the 1930s.

'But nonetheless, many people see it

'as the quintessential Scottish castle,

'and it does have star quality.

'Eilean Donan has been the setting for several Hollywood movies,

'which has made it into one of the most recognised and visited tourist attractions in Scotland.'

I have to say that despite its celebrity status and Hollywood associations,

I feel too tired to visit Eilean Donan today.

I think maybe I've been in the wilds a bit too long,

and to be honest, I don't think I could face those crowds.

And anyway, after my journey from coast to coast,

I've only got the energy to sit here, admire the view,

and maybe wash my socks!

Join me on my next Grand Tour of Scotland,

when I'll be looking for a bed for the night.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd