Episode 17 Grand Tours of the Scottish Islands

The beautiful coastline of Scotland is adorned with

an astonishingly diverse collection of islands.

But inland there's another treasure trove.

Many of Scotland's freshwater lochs are studded with gems of their own,

perfect worlds in miniature, and each with an island story to tell.

I've always been drawn to islands and in this series

I'm setting out to explore Scotland's amazing island riches.

In fact, there are over 280 offshore islands big enough to lay claim

to the name, and that's not counting the myriad of stacks

and skerries that surround 6,000 convoluted miles of coast.

But now I'm turning my back on the sea to discover

the secrets of some of Scotland's landlocked islands.

And to do this I'm heading for the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond.

Loch Lomond lies at the heart of Scotland's first national park,

just 18 miles from the centre of Glasgow and 45 miles from Edinburgh.

For 60% of the country's population,

this beautiful stretch of water is just an hour's drive away.

For centuries, the natural beauties of this loch, which is

the largest body of fresh water on the UK mainland,

have attracted all manner of visitors.

Heroes and villains, the great and the good,

writers and artists have all beaten a path to these shores.

In 1803, Dorothy Wordsworth, her brother William

and the poet Coleridge toured the loch.

Dorothy was enchanted by the romance of the scene.

"What I had heard of Loch Lomond," she wrote,

"had given me no idea of anything like we beheld.

"It was an outlandish scene.

"We might have believed ourselves in North America."

To fully appreciate just what Dorothy Wordsworth was writing about

and to get a fresh perspective on the romantic qualities of my destination,

I'm going to do something she couldn't even have dreamed of.

I'm going to take to the skies.

Globetrotting wildlife cameraman Richard Cook

is a veteran microlight pilot.

Hi, Richard.

'I meet up with him just a short flight from

'the southern shores of Loch Lomond.'

So, tell me, do you think

we're going to get a good bird's-eye view from this?

You're going to get the best view of Scotland you'll ever get from that.

Really? It's fantastic.

Up to 50mph, and we're airborne. It's amazing, isn't it?

Fantastic.

'Richard has filmed from microlights in lots of different

'and exotic locations, from the Peruvian jungle to the Dardanelles.'

The variety is astonishing, isn't it?

I mean, we're flying over some very flat land at the moment

but just ahead of us we can see the Highlands. Exactly.

In about ten minutes' flying you can be on the top of Ben Lomond.

You don't get that anywhere else in the UK.

'Seen from a height of 4,000ft,

'the island-studded Loch Lomond makes a dizzying spectacle.

'It stretches for over 39km from north to south

'and covers 71 square kilometres of fresh water.

'But before the last ice age, when glaciers reshaped the landscape,

'Loch Lomond and its 30 islands were connected to the sea.'

From up here, many of the islands seem to be in perfect alignment,

strung out like charms on a bracelet across the surface of the loch.

It's absolutely beautiful.

The islands are actually part of a submerged ridge that was

formed by the Highland faultline

which separates the hard rocks of the Highlands to the north

from the soft rocks of the Lowlands to the south.

'Divided historically and culturally by its geography

'into Highlands and Lowlands,

'the loch and its islands are like a microcosm of the whole of Scotland.

'To understand this landscape more intimately, I need to get closer,

'so it's time to swap the element of air for the element of water.'

The first stop on my island-hopping grand tour is Inchcailloch, which

lies close to the eastern shore, near the picturesque village of Balmaha.

Most of the islands on the loch are called Inch-something-or-other.

Now, "inch" in Gaelic means island - surprise, surprise!

Now, Inchcailloch means "The Island of the Old Woman",

and the old woman in question was an Irish princess who became

a Christian missionary back in the eighth century.

History remembers her as Saint Kentigerna, and this is her island.

There's an atmosphere here that hints at the sacred

and the mysterious, a place for contemplation and prayer.

This must have been what attracted Saint Kentigerna

to the island 1,300 years ago.

Nestling beneath the ancient trees

are the remains of the religious centre she founded.

There was once a nunnery here and later a parish church.

There's not much left of the old church now

except the outline of its foundations but, for over 500 years,

from the 12th to the 17th century,

folk living on the east side of Loch Lomond worshipped here

and they brought their dead here to be buried,

and long after the church fell into ruin the old graveyard

was still in use right up until the end of the Second World War.

Many of the gravestones are inscribed with the names MacFarlane

and MacGregor, two Highland clans intimately associated with

the loch and the islands.

Gregor MacGregor, clan chief and uncle of the legendary Rob Roy,

is buried here, and who knows, perhaps the bones of my own family's

MacGregor ancestors are mouldering beneath these crumbling gravestones.

Leaving Inchcailloch and its dead MacGregors

and MacFarlanes, I'm rowing across the loch to the village of Balmaha

to meet a man whose own connections with Loch Lomond

and the islands go way back in history.

Sandy MacFarlane owns the Balmaha boatyard,

which has been in his family for generations.

Hiring out these beautiful antique rowing boats

is just part of Sandy's job.

Now, Sandy, your family's got quite an interesting sideline

to the boat-hire business.

Aye, that's right, Paul, we deliver the mail round the islands

that are inhabited in the loch.

How long have you been doing that for?

Eh, that's been going on since about 1948, so that's...65-odd years.

Was that your great-grandfather, was it?

Er, no, it was my grandfather that started that service, yeah. Uh-huh.

And that's something we're continuing to this day.

'Sandy's mail boat is the good ship Marion, the same trusty craft

'that his grandfather skippered when this film was shot in 1968.'

Alexander MacFarlane of Balmaha. Occupation - postman.

But with one or two differences.

The continuity between past and present is almost uncanny.

Like his grandfather,

Sandy also enjoys the companionship of the family Alsatian, Kim.

Back then, deliveries were made three times a week

to the three occupied islands, in all sorts of weather.

Luckily, the similarities end there.

We are blessed with a glorious day.

Sandy, when your grandfather used to do this mail run,

he took it quite seriously, did he not?

Oh, aye, it was a big thing for him and he dressed very smartly

in a, you know, brass-buttoned tunic and a skipped hat

with scrambled egg on the front of it.

No, he definitely did take it very seriously indeed.

Today, we're heading straight for Inchmurrin,

sailing by the string of islands I noticed from the air.

Torrinch and Creinch are the high points

of a submerged ridge marking the boundary fault.

To the north of them is Inchfad, "The Flat Island",

and home to Sandy's early ancestors.

Our oldest traceable ancestor, Duncan MacFarlane,

he lived on Inchfad latterly and he ran a government-run distillery

on the island, believe it or not.

A government-run distillery? Yeah, a government...

A proper government distillery, no moonshine for him!

He was actually buried on Inchcailloch graveyard,

in fact he's buried with some honours, I have to say,

in fact he's buried with some honours, I have to say,

because his gravestone is a proper sandstone flat stone with

the Clan MacFarlane crest and motto on it. What, like a table?

Like a table, aye, in fact you can sit on it and have a dram,

if one wishes to do so,

and I have done myself with the family on many occasions.

I'm sure he'd appreciate that. I'm sure he probably would.

Ahead lies Inchmurrin, the biggest island in Loch Lomond,

but at just a mile-and-a-half long, it's still pretty small.

Today it has a permanent population of ten.

'Curiously, all of them are related.

'Braving the chill winds of spring,

'Dugald Scott takes me on a tour of his domain.

'His family have farmed here since the 1930s

'and Dugald has lived here all his life.'

Now, Dugald, I'm guessing that you're all Scotts here living on Inchmurrin.

Yep. Yeah, we're all Scotts.

Have you ever thought of changing the name of the island

from Inchmurrin to, I don't know, Scott Island?

Scott Land maybe, yeah, that would be good.

Scott Land would be even better. Yeah!

'The Scotts still farm on Inchmurrin but, like many islanders,

'they've been forced to diversify.

'They have holiday lets, a restaurant,

'and occasionally they work on the mainland.'

Do you never feel cut off and isolated?

Not really. We're not that cut off, really. I can get to...

I can get to Glasgow in half an hour. Half an hour?

Yeah, by road. And it's another maybe ten minutes by boat.

Really? Or 15 minutes, yeah.

'It's hard to imagine all the hustle and bustle of city life

'being so close by.

'Inchmurrin looks and feels very remote

'and to fully appreciate its island setting

'Dugald takes me to his favourite viewpoint.'

Wow, this really is quite a splendid and very special view. Look at that.

Yeah, you've got a panoramic view right round the...

That's the ben over there. That's the ben, yeah.

'The 360-degree vista once made Inchmurrin strategically important,

'which explains the ruins of the 13th-century Lennox Castle.

'But long before that this place was sacred to St Mirren,

'who gave his name to the island.'

The saints loved islands, didn't they?

Oh, yeah, yeah. They still do. Do you feel close to God up here?

As close as I'll ever be, I think. Yeah!

'Life on the island hasn't always been easy for the Scotts.

'I meet up with Dugald's mum, Anne, and sister-in-law, Dorothy.

'Anne tells me how her husband, Tom,

'earned a bit of extra cash in the old days.'

Well, he went to all the big Highland Games in Scotland,

he and his brother both went, and won a lot of prizes.

They were quite famous for the heavyweight things

and also for the pole vaulting. So there was prize money involved?

Prize money, yes, uh-huh. Was that important to them at the time?

Oh, yes, very...very important.

Now, there's a fascinating picture here, look at that.

I mean, what's happening there? We've got...

That was from when the loch was frozen.

He walked over the loch, principally to get cigarettes for his mother.

THEY LAUGH

She must have been desperate!

'One winter was so severe that the island was bombed from the air

'with food parcels.

'But on a day like today,

'it's impossible to imagine the loch frozen over.'

Fair weather has always brought the boats and the tourists,

and the loch has long been synonymous with leisure craft of all kinds.

The boating craze began with the dawn of the steam age,

nearly 200 years ago, when people discovered

the delights of cruising the loch on a paddle steamer.

The last steamer to sail among the islands was the Maid of the Loch,

and that was over 30 years ago, and ever since then

this magnificent old paddle steamer has been moored here at Balloch Pier.

Now, this year is the Maid's 60th birthday and she hasn't sailed

since 1981, but hopefully that's about to change.

I've come on board to meet John Beveridge.

For the last three decades, John's been campaigning to restore

the old Maid to her rightful place as the queen of paddle steamers.

It was very popular, was it not, to come out here to Balloch

and board the Maid of the Loch and go for a cruise?

Yes, really up until the last time she sailed

she was carrying 100,000 passengers a year.

And over her lifespan she's carried three million people.

50 years ago a cruise on the Maid was a great day out

and the most elegant way

to explore the scenery of Loch Lomond and its beautiful islands.

But the Maid's fortunes changed

and her paddles haven't turned for decades.

She's had a very unfortunate past few years

because she was sold in 1982 to a succession of private owners

who didn't do anything with the ship at all.

She was vandalised eventually,

because people stripped valuable metal and took all

the interesting artefacts off the ship,

and she was within days of sinking at the pier,

because she had become so waterlogged and...vandalised.

With the Maid's very survival at stake, John came to the rescue,

and with the help of the local council

took the Maid into the safekeeping of the charity.

The main priority today is to breathe life into the old girl's engines,

which, despite the Maid's relative youth,

were built to an original Victorian design from 1897.

Now, John, that's a very inspiring sight to any steam enthusiast.

Yep, this is the Maid of the Loch's compound diagonal steam engine.

Now, you told me that some very vital bits of the ship had gone missing

when it was languishing here for a number of years. Yes.

Was anything taken from the engine? The engine was badly vandalised,

because a lot of the components were copper piping, from the boiler

through taking steam to the main engine and brasswork,

so those are the two main things that people can reclaim money on.

And you're missing a boiler as well. The boiler is the main thing...

It's a large item!

Just a slight question of the main item to get the ship sailing, yes.

John reckons that it will take ?5 million to bring the Maid

back to vigorous life.

I hope he raises the money or finds a sugar daddy

to set this charming old lady to rights.

I'd love to see her paddles turning again.

Balloch Pier, where the Maid has been moored for the past four decades,

is also home to

the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Ranger Service.

I've been invited by park ranger David Cameron

to join him on patrol.

Davie's job as ranger is a bit like being a speed cop,

enforcing the bylaws that regulate the boating traffic

on this vast sheet of water.

So how many people actually use the loch, do you know?

We have 5,000-5,500 powered craft registered on the loch every year.

I think the highest count ever was

over 1,000 boats in one day on Loch Lomond.

That's a pretty busy day.

It's a very busy day. Yes, erm...

When it gets to those sort of peaks, we do what we can.

We can't obviously be everywhere and dealing with every incident.

So that must take a wee bit of policing, I guess.

It does indeed, yes. Craft collisions and mishaps.

Yes, we have our hot spots. Places that people like to go.

Uh-huh.

'One of the most visited boating locations on the loch

'is called The Narrows,

'an almost river-like channel between the islands.

'This is Davie's favourite stretch of water.

'As we thread our way through The Narrows,

'the peace and the tranquility are unexpectedly interrupted

'by the sight of the loch rescue boat.

'Davie makes a call.'

RINGING TONE

How you doing? It's Davie, Davie Cameron on the Brigadier.

Have yous got a shout?

Whereabouts?

'We join the high-speed dash

'to where the cruiser had radioed for help.

'We find her, now aground, off one of the islands.

'The crew had already abandoned ship

'and are waiting on the shore as their skipper makes a futile attempt

'to bail out his sinking vessel.

'The rescue boat goes in and brings them all to safety.'

Lucky for them that we were here.

Absolutely!

If for no other reason, it is a cold evening,

and it looks like a couple of kids.

If we can get them on board and get them warm...

'The survivors look more embarrassed

'than endangered by their boating mishap.

'And, thanks to the rescue boat's quick response,

'they don't need Davie's assistance on this occasion.'

A memorable day for them.

I'm sure it will be! Hopefully one they don't want to repeat.

Continuing his patrol,

Davie drops me off at the picturesque village of Luss

on the western shores of the loch.

From here I make my way to the wooded Inchtavannach,

"The Monk's Island", lying just offshore.

It only takes a couple of minutes to cross the water to Inchtavannach,

which, for the last 30 years, has been home to a man

appropriately called Roy Rogers.

COUNTRY AND WESTERN GUITAR

Famously, of course, Roy Rogers was a cowboy.

Like his fictional namesake, this Roy Rogers also likes to ride the range.

I joined him to spend a day in the saddle

riding his horse, Shoshone.

So, Roy, what is this with the cowboy hat, the spurs

and the horses, on a small island?

Well, it started a few years back, but I've always been

extremely fond of horses.

But a friend of mine taught me to ride Western

and I was absolutely hooked.

Took about 2-3 minutes and I was absolutely hooked

and had Shoshone within six weeks and now we have seven horses.

So you're really bitten by this bug in a big way?

Yes, yeah, very much so, yeah.

'At one time, Roy combined working his farm

'with his job as a fireman on the mainland.

'Now, Inchtavannach has his full attention.'

So this is your range, really, Roy. Yep.

Out to check the stock, see how the sheep are,

check the fences, do all the things cowboys do!

How big's Inchtavannach, Roy?

It's about a mile long by about quarter of a mile wide.

And roughly 200 acres.

So it's a small island.

Yeah, relatively small, yeah.

But it's your fiefdom, in a way.

It is indeed, yeah, we're the only people that live here.

Have you any idea how long people have lived on this island for?

Yes, from our knowledge anyway, certainly since the Iron Age,

if not the Bronze Age before that.

'Down the centuries, Druids, Celtic saints,

'Vikings and monks have been drawn to this magical island.

'Riding the range with Roy, I begin to understand its allure.'

It's my own little kingdom,

it's just the most the beautiful place to live.

I enjoy the solitary part of it too but, I mean, I love company.

It's just everything about it, really. It's living on my own,

having to be independent of everything usually, more or less.

You have to be, I imagine, very self-reliant and resourceful.

Yes, we have had our self-sufficiency sort of thing

where we had our own cows

and we used to make our own cheese and butter. We had goats.

What, Inchtavannach cheese? Yes.

Oh, I tell you, it was goat's cheese,

it was absolutely beautiful stuff.

'Spurring our horses on,

'we galloped the full length of Roy's domain

'to enjoy one of his proud views.'

This is not a bad view though, is it? It's gorgeous, isn't it?

The ben, bit of a breeze on the loch

and the scent that it brings you - can you smell it?

Fresh. Really, really fresh.

I can only smell horse, to be quite honest with you.

'Roy has a novel way of getting rid of the smell of horse sweat

'after a long day of bouncing in the saddle,

'and I'm surprised and delighted to see that it's a technique

'that takes full advantage of this island location.'

Shoshone... She's swimming now, look. There she goes.

'Swimming the horses is something that Roy

'and his partner Susie do all year round.

'In the water, Shoshone looks like a mythical seahorse

'as she surges forward.'

It's a great thing actually

because not only does it wash all the sweat off

but it really does physically relax her, but more than anything,

it relaxes them mentally

and that, to me, is the biggest thing about it, is the mental side.

Have you done it with other horses as well?

Yes, lots of horses for all sorts of reasons.

Cardiovascular. We had one with a snake bite and didn't know

if we could do anything for it and the vet who sent the horse to us

had worked with a horse before that and it had taken nearly six months

before it got back to work so we said, "Well, we'll give it a shot."

And within a fortnight, we had it sent back to work.

So swimming is really therapy for horses. Absolutely.

Well done.

Well done, Shoshone.

Well, that's a sight I didn't expect to see.

'Back on dry land once again,

'it's time for me to take the high road,

'and what better way to end a grand tour of these islands

'than by climbing the mountain that gave the loch its name?

'Ben Lomond.

'Ben Lomond is the most southerly of Scotland's famous Munros -

'mountains over 3,000ft.

'And being so close to Glasgow,

'it has, for many years,

'been the most popular

'and most climbed of them all.

'In fact, about 30,000 people clamber up to the summit every year.

'They say that from the top you can see half of Scotland,

'the coast of Ireland

'and even the mountains of the Lake District in England,

'so it should be worth the effort.'

Sadly for national pride, the first recorded ascent of the ben

was made by a group of Cambridge University students in 1756.

William Burrell and chums were determined to conquer the peak

but Burrell himself was overcome with vertigo

just a few hundred feet shy of the summit.

His friends bashed on and celebrated their achievement

with lashings of ginger beer.

It's true that the early climbers totally exaggerated

the seriousness of the climb.

There was talk of thin air, altitude sickness and terrifying cliffs

that made even the strongest heads swim with vertigo.

Such claims seemed to have been

endorsed by early paintings

of the mountain which make the ben look more like the Matterhorn.

In reality, the climb is little more than a long, stiff walk.

Though I might be tempted to agree with one early climber who said

it was impossible to get to the top without the aid of a whisky flask.

Here we are.

The top at last and in keeping with tradition, just...

..kiss the summit cairn as you do.

Now, sadly, I've left my whisky flask behind.

I've only got ginger beer to toast this fabulous view

and to reflect on all the islands that I visited.

Each one, a perfect world in miniature.

Slainte!