Heart of the British Isles: A Grand Tour Coast


Heart of the British Isles: A Grand Tour

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Come with me if you want adventure.

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Back we go to the sea

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for a fresh look at the coast.

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Grab your sou'westers and sign on for a brand new tour, right around the British Isles.

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Stopping off at some spectacular sites close to home,

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we'll also be venturing far out across the water to Denmark,

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for a voyage with the Vikings.

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And making a journey to the end of the Earth in Brittany,

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to discover how shared seas unite us with our neighbours.

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Our voyage around Britain and beyond doesn't start with the edge of our islands, but at their heart.

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On this first leg of our journey, the Isle of Man is the hub,

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as we spin round the United Kingdoms of the Irish Sea.

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In England, Alice gets to grips with quicksand.

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It's got me good and proper.

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It really is quite scary.

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On the Mersey, Mark unearths the ship that broke Brunel's heart.

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There it is, as fresh as it comes.

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In Wales, Nick wants to see how Anglesey was built.

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I've been following this band of quartz all the way up and it's very beautiful.

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Off the shore of Scotland, we wade out with fishermen who wrestle the raging tide.

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Me, I explore the Isle of Man

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and discover the birthplace of a right royal institution.

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This is Coast and beyond.

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The Isle of Man isn't part of the United Kingdom,

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but it's got a special place in its heart looking out to all our shores.

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Like the hub of a wheel, it's almost equidistant from Northern Ireland,

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Scotland, England and Wales

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and we'll visit them all on this first journey.

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It might be tiny, but the Manx mainland packs in lots of landscapes.

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Rolling green hills in the north,

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a gnarled, rocky coastline in the south,

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and a scattering of sandy beaches.

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The Isle of Man could be the British Isles in miniature.

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For a small island, it can boast some big ideas.

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How about the Laxey wheel?

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Now that's what you call a water feature.

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And I've turned up in time to turn it on.

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Keeper of the wheel Roger Clare is showing me how it's done.

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Now all you need to do is turn the wheel clockwise.

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-Does it start first time?

-We'll see.

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MECHANISM CREAKS

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That's a good noise.

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Opening this valve releases a flow of water which is forced

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up the tower to cascade on the wheel, setting it in motion.

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There it goes.

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Oh, that's great.

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You might get wet now.

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Oh, yeah!

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When it started to whirl in 1854, it wowed the locals

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and its sheer scale is still staggering.

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So why is the world's largest working waterwheel here,

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spinning around at the centre of the Irish Sea?

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There are clues to its construction nearby,

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the abandoned lead mines and the port at the bottom of the valley.

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It might be hard to believe today, but 120 years ago this place hummed with activity

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as countless tonnes of zinc and lead ore were shipped out of the harbour here.

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Sea trade kept business buoyant at Laxey, but underground water was threatening to sink it.

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Mine expert Pete Geddis is going to show me the damp, dingy hell-hole below.

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OK, Neil, well this is the sea entrance, access tunnel to the well shaft.

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-This little door?

-This little door.

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Oh, yes, I hate it already.

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It probably would have been wetter than this in the mining days

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because the discharged water would have run along here.

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Teams of miners toiled around the clock, chasing richer seams of ore.

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As they dug deeper the water problem got worse.

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-The miner's nightmare was the water ingressing into the shaft and then getting into the levels below.

-Yeah.

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Where is the water coming from, if that's not a stupid question?

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This is just ground drainage water, it's running off the land, it's running down the bedrock,

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and then it finds its way onto the edge of the shaft, so it's a perpetual sea of rain down here.

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All mines flood.

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Often water was pumped out with steam engines,

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but with no coal on the Isle of Man, steam wasn't an option.

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So what about putting the water to work?

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That's what the Laxey wheel does, Victorian style.

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Streams piped down the valley drove the wheel.

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Its rotation-powered machine is capable of pumping out 250 gallons of water per minute.

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Bailing out the mine shafts wasn't the wheel's only job.

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They could have boxed the machinery in, hidden it away.

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Instead it's deliberately sited at the head of the valley,

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and emblazoned with the Three Legs of Man.

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A wheel of fortune inviting investors to buy shares in the mine.

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Now it's an emblem of Manx pride, a reminder that the island can match its powerful neighbours,

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countries my fellow Coasters will explore on their wheel around the Irish Sea.

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Our tour of the UK starts in North Wales, with Nick.

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At the Dee Estuary, an imaginary line in the mud

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marks the boundary between the English and the Welsh.

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You soon hit a high spot of Victorian resort building, Llandudno.

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The town's nestled in the shelter of the Great Orme's imposing cliffs, which point our way westward.

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Out towards my destination, the largest island in Wales, Anglesey.

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Many make their way to these cliffs for the glorious sights looking out

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to sea, but what's brought me here are the rocks beneath my feet.

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On the island's edge you see a slice right through the Earth's geological history,

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an extraordinary collection of rocks are exposed here.

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Just to show you how different Anglesey is,

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look at this geological map of southern Britain.

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Great swathes of it are all the same colour, meaning they're all the same rock type.

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Here's this great band of chalk running up her in green,

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there's another huge band of limestone running down here.

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But up here on Anglesey something different is happening,

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there's an intense mosaic of different colours, meaning there are many different rock types.

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Much of the mystery of Anglesey's formation is buried below the turf,

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but the coast reveals the island's subterranean secrets.

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The most stunning geological feature is the long channel of water

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that separates Anglesey from the mainland, the Menai Strait.

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To understand its significance I'm with David Schofield from the British Geological Survey.

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What part does this gulf play in Anglesey geology?

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Well, this is actually a long fault zone which we call the Menai Strait fault system.

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It separates very much

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older rocks to the north west than those to the south east.

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We're looking at a fundamental geological divide, which we know is still active

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because we're seeing some of Britain's biggest earthquakes just happening along this fault line.

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-Right where we're standing?

-Right where we're standing, yes.

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So the shore we're on here is moving in relation to the shore over there.

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It certainly is, at a very slow rate every year,

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and every now and then it takes a bit of a jump and there's an earthquake.

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Around 300 small earthquakes shake Britain each year, often felt most

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strongly here, caused as the mainland grinds against Anglesey.

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It's part of the bigger movement of landmasses around the globe.

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The Earth's crust is made up of separate distinct plates

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which are constantly moving against each other.

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Where the edges of the plate move apart new crust is created, about as fast as your fingernails grow.

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Deep on the ocean floor, as the plates tear apart, lava can ooze out.

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This fiery business of planet building is exposed beautifully

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on a small strip of Anglesey at Llanddwyn Island.

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Local geologist Margaret Wood is my guide.

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These are the world-famous pillow larvas of Llanddwyn.

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All I can see is a grey rock.

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-What are we looking at?

-Oh, it's beautifully bluey grey though,

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we're looking at pillows which are lava which came up on the ocean bed.

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They get into the water and immediately the outside will crack.

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These huge great big rounded lumps here?

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Each one of those is called a pillow.

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It is astonishing the way that raw nature can produce these symmetries and shapes.

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But having looked at those,

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something even more extraordinary, on the other end of the island,

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you've got material that has actually gone down back into the crust,

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and the fantastic thing is Llanddwyn Island is a complete mini-plate.

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But that's amazing, I always thought that these plates on the surface of

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the Earth, really were the size of continents or oceans.

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You're telling me that here on this beach in Anglesey there's an entire plate.

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Absolutely.

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This tiny island tells a big tale of how the Earth's built.

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The plates of crust pull apart at one edge, but collide at the other edge.

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As they crush into each other a jumble of different rocks is left behind,

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which remarkably, you can also see on Llanddwyn Island.

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Wow, just look at that! Those colours, Margaret!

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-It's fantastic, isn't it?

-So many shapes too, it looks like a great big blancmange.

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It's wonderful, isn't it? Those are quartz-rich rocks, you've got limestone over there,

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and you've got schists, you've got conglomerate, and the colours are fantastic, aren't they?

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-So this is two plates of the Earth crust colliding?

-Exactly.

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In the hundreds of millions of years Anglesey has been moving around the globe,

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collisions and splits in the Earth's crust have created an astonishing array of rocks.

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It's not just geologists who love this landscape,

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it's a paradise for climbers too.

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The sea's worked away at the weaker rocks to create some of Britain's toughest cliff climbs.

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Now I'm taking up the challenge to see these rocks as only climbers can.

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But before the ascent, I've got an exhilarating 100-foot descent in prospect.

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Fortunately, Libby Peter and Graham Desroy know their ropes.

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I guess, is it the nature of cliff climbing that you're always going

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to start by going down before you can come up?

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Yeah, it's a bit back-to-front. Normally you climb a mountain

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and then abseil down again,

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but sea cliffs it's the reverse, you commit yourself by abseiling in and then you have to climb out again.

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It does look amazing when you just disappear into the...

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Yeah, it's like you're abseiling straight into the sea.

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Yeah, it does. See you down there.

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OK, will do.

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Here goes. It's a very long way down.

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The rock is now very dry and storm battered.

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It's as if it's been scoured clear of vegetation.

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That's pretty exciting.

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-Is this where we start traversing round or...?

-That's right.

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You know you're close to the sea when the spray starts whacking you in the face.

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Hello, Libby.

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What do you think?

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Well, it beats sitting on a beach!

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Just awesome, it's architecturally massive.

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Takes your breath away.

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The old heart's going.

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The pros rate this climb as "very severe".

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I can't tell you what I call it.

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I can see all the incredible folds of rock, it's been bent like a piece of paper.

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I mustn't get too distracted, I'm meant to be climbing.

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I've been following this band of quartz all the way up.

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Here it is,

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glistening white in the sunshine, it's very beautiful.

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Thank you so much.

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That was sensational.

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Thank you so much, it's such an honour to be taken up by the two of you.

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I was so impressed with the way you climbed it, it was brilliant, it really was.

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While Nick's hanging off the edge of the Irish Sea,

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I'm right at its heart on the Isle of Man.

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The Manx economy depends on its transport links, how well it's connected to the wider world.

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Tourists have been hopping over to the Isle of Man

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since steam ship services started nearly 200 years ago.

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Now, this tax haven also thrives thanks to this strip of tarmac with 40,000 flights a year.

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And they're making the runway longer.

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Now, the obvious thing to do would be to extend the tarmac in that direction inland.

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But there's a problem. There's a road and houses smack bang in the path,

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so instead what they've had to do is to extend in that direction, straight into the Irish Sea.

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Adding 240 metres to the runway

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means creating a big new patch of coast.

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To shield this virgin shore from the sea they've brought in rugged Norwegian granite.

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At 42 tonnes each, these blocks are the size of a van.

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Anything smaller would be washed away by the waves.

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Building the future can mean unearthing the past.

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Preparing the ground for the new runway they discovered part of a prehistoric village.

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The footings of at least six large roundhouses,

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and close by, a child, with two adults.

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People from the Bronze Age, some 3-4,000 years ago, but new finds go back even further.

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So where are we, what are we sitting in the middle of?

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Well, we're sat in the middle of a Mesolithic house, which is 7-8,000 years old, we believe.

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Do you think that this house is on its own?

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No, we've got every reason to believe that there are other houses.

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I think that maybe you could imagine a family or an extended family group

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living in each of the structures, that we're looking at a community of some size at that time.

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Ironically, in the chaos of a 21st century building site

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they've discovered the domestic bliss of our earliest settlers.

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4,000 years before Stonehenge people were building houses here.

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This is one of Britain's first grand designs, topped off with a sealskin roof.

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Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were giving up their wandering ways

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to settle down at home, with the coast close by for food.

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This has always been a sought-after location.

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800 years ago, the Vikings controlled these waters.

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But in 1266, the Norse rulers moved on, selling the Isle of Man to the King of Scots,

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and we're heading to Scotland in search of the Vikings' legacy, starting on a long finger of land.

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This rocky shore pokes out into the Irish Sea.

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Venture south and eventually the finger comes to a point.

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The Mull of Galloway, Scotland's most southerly spot.

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To me as a kid this was Land's End.

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Coming to this coast as a wee boy gave me a passion for digging into the past.

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The Vikings didn't leave much building work behind.

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The castles are a later addition.

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But something of the Norsemen's culture does survive at Annan,

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an ancient form of fishing still hanging on.

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My name is George Wilasy, I'm a half net fisherman,

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and this is where

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we do this type of fishing.

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It's a Norse method and it was introduced here more than 1,000 years ago by the Vikings.

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When the half netter goes across the sand to the water's edge

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he's hunting for a place to catch a salmon or a sea trout or a grilse.

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The best place is where the tide is coming hard onto the shore,

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that's where the fish will be following the line of the tide.

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I started half netting in 1956.

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My father was a fisherman, my grandfather and his father,

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they were all fishermen, and that knowledge had been passed onto us.

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Sometimes a fish will go in,

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and actually it's his tail that's touching it, and he's backing into

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the net, so he's already pointing out of the net when you lift.

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And they're extremely quick, so you have to be quick to lift the frame clear of the water.

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The younger generation today, they're better educated, they're faster, they're stronger

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and yet they couldn't do what these old people used to do.

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I'm not one of these old people yet, mind!

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It's part of our heritage and heritage is a scarce thing, we should never lose heritage.

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You're never far from a fisherman on the Irish Sea.

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Boats of every shape and size ply these waters.

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Home port for many is on the Isle of Man.

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Whatever their craft, all sailors share a common bond

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and Douglas harbour shelters a tragic reminder of those in peril on the sea.

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Wrecks usually remain on the seabed,

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but cradled by the sea wall at Douglas is a boat that was raised

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because of the awful circumstances of her sinking.

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The wreck of that scallop dredger, the Solway Harvester, is a chilling sight.

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It's a terrible reminder of the price that fishermen sometimes pay for the bounty of the sea.

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Seven men drowned when that ship sank, the entire crew lost.

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On the night of January 11th 2000, as a storm was raging,

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the Solway Harvester sought shelter off the Isle of Man,

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but she vanished without trace.

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There was no mayday call, her disappearance a complete mystery.

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At her home port on Scotland's southern shore, they honour the seven men of the Solway Harvester.

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Robin Mills was one of the crew on the stricken scallop boat.

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Robin's wife, Karen, was with her family, waiting for news of her husband.

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Five o'clock in the morning press were arriving and you were beginning to think

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this is getting scarier, this is maybe real, because you still had a

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hope at five o'clock in the morning that they would be found. There was

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nothing confirmed at that stage, so I think at six o'clock somebody persuaded us to

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try and rest, probably because I was pregnant at the time and they were worried about me.

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And I can remember helicopters, you know that

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sort of vibration of the helicopter noise out..

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We could hear that outside and we realised what they were doing.

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We prayed and hoped that they might just be bobbing about in life rafts somewhere.

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RADIO: "And the weather I think will match the mood of the town as it awakes to the..."

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It was a very, grey, grey dismal day.

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But I remember, it was January so it doesn't get light early,

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and it would be quarter to eight, I think, in the morning we got a phone call to say that

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they'd found both life rafts, so there was no hope then.

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Karen's husband, Robin, had perished along with his six crewmates.

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He wasn't even a regular hand on the boat.

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-Robin wasn't a fisherman at all.

-No, he wasn't.

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He was a painter and decorator but his brother was a fisherman.

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Craig phoned to say he was very short of crew.

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I think some of the crew members were sick or hadn't turned up and he was asked to help.

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I don't think he was particularly keen to go, but it was just one of these things.

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It's just bad luck and bad luck and bad luck.

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Mm-hm.

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When the Solway Harvester was found on the seabed, the Manx Government had the vessel raised

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to recover the bodies, and returned to the Isle of Man to investigate the mysterious sinking.

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After eight years of legal wrangles over the evidence, in 2008

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the coroner ruled the seven deaths had been accidental.

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The scallop boat had flooded in foul weather.

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In the calm after the storm

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she finally sits in a safe haven beyond the reach of the sea that claimed her.

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Out from the Isle of Man we continue our wheel around the Irish Sea, in England with Alice.

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The Solway Firth separates the Scots from the English.

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England begins in the mud with the promise of mountains to come.

0:25:570:26:03

These beautiful beaches don't attract the crowds

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like Blackpool further south, but you can still get a cornet.

0:26:060:26:11

You won't sell many ice creams at that speed!

0:26:110:26:15

Only a short drive away, the peaks of the Lake District are tantalisingly close.

0:26:150:26:22

Wastwater is the deepest lake in England,

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and just behind is Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England,

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but the big story of this shore is sand.

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Morecambe Bay, the largest expanse of inter-tidal mudflats in Britain,

0:26:360:26:41

fun for some,

0:26:410:26:43

an obstacle to others.

0:26:440:26:47

Morecambe Bay covers 120 square miles.

0:26:470:26:50

A long detour unless you brave the perilous path over the sand.

0:26:500:26:56

Before the railway arrived, horse-drawn carriages sometimes

0:26:590:27:02

got stuck, with tragic results, as they tried to race across the mud.

0:27:020:27:07

These sandbanks feel so solid I can see why people might think about

0:27:120:27:16

taking a short cut across them, but they're also incredibly treacherous.

0:27:160:27:20

SIREN WAILS The siren warns the unwary that the tide's turning.

0:27:200:27:25

It rushes in at about nine miles an hour, twice the speed

0:27:250:27:30

of a brisk walk, flooding the bay in up to 30 foot of water.

0:27:300:27:35

And a hidden danger lurks to hold you fast as the sea surges in -

0:27:350:27:40

quicksand.

0:27:400:27:43

What turns soft sand, so nice between the toes, into a sticky sludge

0:27:450:27:51

that can cement you to the spot, unable to escape its grip?

0:27:510:27:56

Shortly I'll shun the safety of the path and get stuck in the mud myself.

0:27:560:28:01

To see exactly what I'll be getting myself into we're making some DIY quicksand.

0:28:010:28:09

Sedimentologist Jeff Peakall and his team from Leeds University are building up layers of sand

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which can be saturated with water, flowing in from underneath.

0:28:150:28:20

Now you've got a tube of experimental quicksand here, but what is it when it occurs naturally?

0:28:200:28:26

Quicksand is really where you change from a solid state

0:28:260:28:29

into a liquid state, really rapidly, almost instantaneously.

0:28:290:28:33

And can it be any type of sand with water flowing through it?

0:28:330:28:36

No, it needs one with lots of holes in so it needs to be nice

0:28:360:28:40

round grains, ideally all grains of the same size.

0:28:400:28:44

What we're going to do here is run a quick experiment

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and I'm going to put a model digger truck in here.

0:28:470:28:51

So the sand seems to be supporting the weight of that very well at the moment.

0:28:510:28:53

We're going to add a little bit of water, from underneath.

0:28:530:28:57

We've got some water flowing in through here, but it remains solid

0:28:570:29:00

for a period of time, and then suddenly it turns into a liquid, and our digger

0:29:000:29:04

is disappearing into the sand, just as the sand has gone from a solid into a liquid.

0:29:040:29:10

Yes, it's not just going underwater, it's actually sinking into the sand.

0:29:100:29:15

If you as you walk on it, you just add that extra shaking

0:29:150:29:19

vibration, that's just enough to break the grains apart.

0:29:190:29:22

So one of the factors producing the sinking effect in quicksand is actually the movement of the person.

0:29:220:29:27

Yes, and then if you begin to sink in and you start to wriggle, then you increase the effect

0:29:270:29:32

and you'll actually sink further. So one of the difficult things for the person falling

0:29:320:29:36

into quicksand must be to try and remain relatively still.

0:29:360:29:41

This will be me in a minute, sinking in.

0:29:410:29:44

The secret for survival is to spread your weight over the surface, so instead of tyres

0:29:440:29:50

the truck that's taking me out is on tracks.

0:29:500:29:54

It's one of the few vehicles you could actually take out onto the sands with confidence and knowing

0:29:540:29:59

that you would get back safely, and that's all because of its huge wide tracks underneath.

0:29:590:30:05

We've actually gone out of this vehicle before and

0:30:050:30:07

stepped onto the sand and sunk and the vehicle's been sat on the top.

0:30:070:30:11

Volunteer Garry Parsons set up Bay Search & Rescue

0:30:110:30:15

after witnessing the galloping tide almost kill a man stuck in the mud.

0:30:150:30:19

The sand was so hard you couldn't drive your fingers into it down by the side of his legs.

0:30:190:30:23

We thought we were going to watch this guy drown right in front of us.

0:30:230:30:27

Now these versatile vehicles provide rapid response,

0:30:270:30:31

taking the most direct route to strugglers on the sand.

0:30:310:30:35

Down we go.

0:30:350:30:36

That is incredibly steep.

0:30:360:30:39

Bay Search & Rescue and the on-site coastguard are preparing

0:30:480:30:51

for a spot of quicksand training, and I'm going to be the guinea pig.

0:30:510:30:56

Starting to have second thoughts about this.

0:30:590:31:02

Lovely bit of quicksand we stumbled across this morning for you.

0:31:020:31:05

-Right.

-Off you go, jump in.

0:31:050:31:07

OK.

0:31:070:31:09

If I'm going to get myself in here, you better get me out before the tide comes in.

0:31:090:31:13

No worries.

0:31:130:31:14

That feels quite firm... at the moment.

0:31:160:31:20

I'm just moving my ankles, I reckon, and there's some water there.

0:31:200:31:24

The mud is just there, can I get my foot out?

0:31:240:31:26

What's really horrible and produces this rising sense of panic,

0:31:330:31:39

you're trying to move and you're trying to work yourself free, and every time you're moving your foot

0:31:390:31:43

and agitating the silt around you, you can just feel yourself sinking in further.

0:31:430:31:49

It really is solid, I reckon I can lean right back

0:31:490:31:53

and just stay in the silt.

0:31:530:31:56

It's got me good and proper, that really is quite scary.

0:31:570:32:03

It's very scary,

0:32:030:32:05

you can just imagine being here and the tide coming in,

0:32:050:32:08

nobody around for miles, I just can't move.

0:32:080:32:12

'The sand roots you to the spot, and then the sea rises over your head.

0:32:160:32:23

'That's why these guys race against the tide.'

0:32:270:32:30

OK, Alice, we'll soon have you out.

0:32:300:32:34

The only way to release me is to liquefy the sand.

0:32:340:32:38

First they loosen it up and then turn it into a liquid by adding more water.

0:32:380:32:42

-I'm a bit worried about sinking further in.

-You won't go any further.

0:32:420:32:46

Is that coming out? It's coming.

0:32:530:32:56

That's one.

0:32:580:33:00

-OK?

-Yeah.

0:33:020:33:03

-Thank you very much.

-You're welcome.

0:33:110:33:14

It's great to be free.

0:33:170:33:21

Despite the dangers, if you stick within safe limits,

0:33:210:33:25

this is a paradise for playing around.

0:33:250:33:29

We love the seaside so much we'll pay for its pleasures.

0:33:320:33:36

Sand and scares can be a winning combination.

0:33:400:33:46

Further south at Sefton Sands, they have their own thrill rides.

0:33:540:33:59

Then big, long beaches give way to a big, bold city...

0:34:020:34:08

Liverpool.

0:34:090:34:12

The Mersey might be muddy, but where there's muck, there's brass, or maybe iron.

0:34:140:34:20

An iron ship, as Mark's about to find out.

0:34:200:34:25

In 1888, the world's largest ship was making her way up the Mersey,

0:34:250:34:31

the SS Great Eastern.

0:34:310:34:34

It was the final engineering triumph of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

0:34:340:34:39

But this wasn't her maiden voyage, it was her last.

0:34:410:34:46

The Great Eastern had been launched 30 years earlier in 1858.

0:34:480:34:54

Built for nonstop travel to Australia,

0:34:560:34:59

she was nearly twice the length of any other ship,

0:34:590:35:03

the largest moveable thing men had ever made.

0:35:030:35:07

And Brunel was the man that designed her.

0:35:090:35:12

This is the most famous of all the images of Brunel.

0:35:140:35:18

Look, he has his stovepipe hat, his cigar, behind him the drag chains of the Great Eastern.

0:35:180:35:25

But he's actually a real engineer because, look, he's got mud on his trousers.

0:35:250:35:31

His plan for the Great Eastern specified a revolutionary double skin iron hull,

0:35:310:35:37

but her massive size also made her massively over-budget.

0:35:370:35:43

Building his masterpiece took a terrible toll on Brunel.

0:35:430:35:49

A week after the Great Eastern's trial voyage, he died, following a stroke.

0:35:490:35:55

His great liner fared little better.

0:35:560:35:59

Smaller, faster ships captured the passenger trade she was built for.

0:35:590:36:05

Her last journey was down the Mersey

0:36:050:36:09

to become a floating billboard advertising a local department store.

0:36:090:36:15

If Brunel had seen it thus he would have cried.

0:36:150:36:19

Finally, the ship that had broken Brunel's heart

0:36:210:36:24

was herself to be broken up for scrap.

0:36:240:36:29

Too big for the breaker's yard she was beached on the banks of the Mersey.

0:36:290:36:34

Marine archaeologist Mike Stammers is showing me her last resting place.

0:36:370:36:42

So this is a contemporary photograph?

0:36:420:36:45

Yes, of the Great Eastern on New Ferry Beach.

0:36:450:36:48

She's looking at an angle, isn't she?

0:36:480:36:49

-Yes, and we're standing right near the bow.

-What, just there?

0:36:490:36:54

Yeah, two tiny little people looking up at this towering bow.

0:36:540:36:59

-It would have been right up there.

-Yeah, right up into the sky blocking out the skyline behind.

0:36:590:37:04

This mountain of wrought iron was a valuable prize for the scrap metal men,

0:37:040:37:09

but the old girl wasn't going to go down without a struggle.

0:37:090:37:14

What they hadn't bargained for was the workmanship of Brunel.

0:37:140:37:18

She was so well built it took them nearly two years to break it up.

0:37:180:37:22

So rather than making a big profit they made a loss.

0:37:220:37:24

They made a thumping great loss.

0:37:240:37:27

And, of course, the actual process of breaking her up must have been terribly hard work.

0:37:270:37:32

Oh, yes, because they had no oxyacetylene in those days,

0:37:320:37:35

it was a case of sledgehammers and coal chisels,

0:37:350:37:38

and a great big iron wrecking ball that they dropped onto the plates, and hoped to smash them apart.

0:37:380:37:43

200 men, sometimes working day and night,

0:37:430:37:47

needed two years to smash the ship to bits.

0:37:470:37:52

Surely some scrap must have sunk down into the silt.

0:37:540:38:00

Mike is off to try and find pieces of Brunel's liner buried in the mud,

0:38:000:38:07

but I'm going down river

0:38:070:38:10

to where they're still breaking up ships.

0:38:100:38:13

I want to see how things have moved on in the 120 years

0:38:140:38:20

since the Great Eastern was battered to death near here.

0:38:200:38:24

Former Falklands warship HMS Intrepid arrived six months ago to be broken up.

0:38:270:38:35

-Where's the ship?

-Well, HMS Intrepid came in here in January, and this is all you've got left.

0:38:350:38:42

It looks like chaos, but presumably it's all terribly organised.

0:38:420:38:45

Everybody knows what they're doing, we've most probably got about 12 guys down here.

0:38:450:38:50

We've got six machines working, we're processing copper, brass, cable, aluminium.

0:38:500:38:56

Another eight weeks, this will be completely cleared,

0:38:560:38:59

the lock gates will be opened, water will come in here, and hopefully two more vessels.

0:38:590:39:05

Just like for the Victorian ship breakers, time is still money,

0:39:050:39:11

speed is the difference between profit and loss.

0:39:110:39:14

But Brunel couldn't have imagined how his machine age would evolve to eat itself.

0:39:140:39:22

You can't crack up a ship without leaving some traces behind.

0:39:240:39:29

Back out in the mud, Mike thinks he's found a bit of Brunel's Great Eastern.

0:39:340:39:39

-This is what I spotted before, I think you'll be rather impressed with this.

-Isn't that extraordinary?

0:39:390:39:46

It's a great big chunk of iron plate.

0:39:460:39:48

-Hang on, there's a trowel for you.

-Thank you.

0:39:480:39:50

-There, look, look.

-Solid as anything.

0:39:500:39:53

-How do you actually know this is the Great Eastern?

-Well, the Great Eastern was

0:39:530:39:58

built of very thick plate, either three quarters of an inch or an inch thick, so if we get the callipers.

0:39:580:40:06

That looks pretty good.

0:40:060:40:09

-Look at that.

-That's nearly an inch.

0:40:090:40:11

Nearly an inch.

0:40:110:40:14

-15/16.

-So that's a good indicator.

0:40:140:40:17

It looks like it's running through to there, so if I try the other end,

0:40:170:40:21

looks like bits of rivet here as well. Look at those.

0:40:210:40:27

Look, I can just lift it out.

0:40:290:40:32

I've got my own row of rivets here as well.

0:40:320:40:34

Yeah, Great Eastern revealed.

0:40:340:40:36

There we are. Good Lord, bright metal.

0:40:450:40:49

Isn't that wonderful?! There it is, as fresh as it comes.

0:40:510:40:57

Some three million rivets held the Great Eastern together.

0:40:570:41:02

It seems a precious few are still holding fast 150 years later.

0:41:020:41:09

The struggle of building this iron leviathan broke Brunel,

0:41:090:41:14

but she's left him a fitting memorial,

0:41:140:41:18

ironwork of his masterpiece scattered in the mud of the Mersey.

0:41:180:41:23

In 1850, the metal merchants of the Mersey cast iron parts for a mighty machine.

0:41:290:41:36

And at the centre of the Irish Sea, out on the Isle of Man, it's still spinning.

0:41:390:41:45

We've come full circle,

0:41:470:41:49

back to the Laxey Wheel,

0:41:490:41:51

designed to pump floodwater from nearby mineshafts

0:41:510:41:55

and attract investors to pump money into the mining business.

0:41:550:41:59

And one of the investors in this mine is owed a huge debt of thanks by everyone who comes to the coast.

0:42:020:42:10

Sir William Hillary was appalled by the loss of life on the seas around the Isle of Man,

0:42:120:42:18

so he hatched a plan.

0:42:180:42:20

And what he came up with was this, the tower of refuge,

0:42:210:42:26

a sanctuary built for shipwrecked sailors in 1832.

0:42:260:42:29

Hillary ordered that it was to be built of the rudest and strongest

0:42:290:42:33

materials so that it could withstand the raging seas that often pound this reef.

0:42:330:42:38

Looks pretty sturdy to me.

0:42:380:42:39

Sailors wrecked on this reef could sit out a storm safe behind stone walls

0:42:390:42:45

but William Hillary's most towering achievement

0:42:450:42:48

is something even more enduring than this.

0:42:480:42:52

In 1823, he launched an appeal for a formation of a national institution

0:42:520:42:57

for the preservation of lives and property from shipwreck.

0:42:570:43:00

It took over a year, but eventually that national institution was

0:43:000:43:04

formed, and in 1854 it became the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

0:43:040:43:10

Nearly two centuries later, the founder gives his name to

0:43:190:43:23

the boat that patrols Douglas Bay, where it all began.

0:43:230:43:27

Now all the seas around the British Isles are safer

0:43:270:43:31

thanks to over 300 RNLI Lifeboats and their volunteer crews.

0:43:310:43:35

Our voyage around home shores and beyond steams on next time towards the English Riviera.

0:43:380:43:46

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:44:010:44:04

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0:44:040:44:07

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