Episode 1 Coastal Path

The South West Coast Path is one of the world's best-loved walks.

At 630 miles, it's also England's longest national trail.

It's not for the faint-hearted.

This can be challenging walking.

But, boy, is it worth it!

I'm Paul Rose, and I've explored the world.

But although I love the South West coast,

I've never actually walked its path.

Until now.

'In this series, I'll be discovering adventure at every turn.'

Wow! We're flying, buddy!

How big of a cliff is it?

High enough to make your knees wobble!

'I'll be discovering wildlife and wild traditions.'

Now, that's what you call an entrance!

This is where land and sea collide.

It really is the walk of a lifetime.

Minehead in Somerset.

Its Victorian promenade offers plenty of temptations.

But there's no time to hang around.

This is what I'm looking for.

The monument marking the official start of the South West Coast Path.

From here, it leads me that way, up into the wilds of Exmoor.

Here goes!

I'm walking the path the traditional way round, from Somerset,

through North Devon and Cornwall,

around the Land's End Peninsula,

and then up along the South Coast,

ending in Poole in Dorset.

I'm not walking every inch,

but I will be sampling as many highlights as I can.

BIRDSONG

It's a challenge from the off.

Exmoor boasts some of the highest cliffs in the country.

Park ranger Tim Parrish

has looked after this area for the past 15 years,

so he's the perfect companion for my first stretch.

It certainly starts with a bit of a bang! You're not wrong there.

It's a bit of an introduction to what's going to be coming.

But it's worth it, right?

Because we've only walked just... What, three miles maybe?

If that. If that. Yeah.

It's a pretty steep climb and then you're out of the trees,

on the top of the open moor.

Got the skylarks singing, sun's shining.

It's just an amazing place to be, isn't it?

You've walked the whole South West Coast Path, haven't you?

I did, yeah. It took me six weeks. And, er...

Yeah, it's, er...it's something I'd really recommend to anybody to do.

It's one of the greatest walks in the world, without a shadow of doubt.

Great. Well, let's get going! Yeah, let's do it. Let's get on. OK.

The coast path was created in the 19th century

for the coastguard to patrol for smugglers.

There's so many different ways of exploring this path. Oh, yeah.

Some of their lookout huts are still standing,

like this one at Hurlstone Point.

Between the sort of mid 1600s to the 1800s,

smuggling was a fair old industry around the South West,

and this was one of the many attempts by the government

to try and crack down on it.

Well, it's the perfect spot for a lookout.

You can see unlimited that way, miles this way.

It's THE spot if you want to look at the coast, isn't it?

That was why they built it here.

Back in the day, there would have been a huge bay window up on there,

and that's where the excise men would have stood,

looking out to see what was moving up and down the Channel.

GULLS CRY

We take this coast path now pretty much for recreation. I mean, look at me!

THEY LAUGH Exactly.

But access to these lonely spots was primarily for these lookouts.

Absolutely, and this is it.

You can go the whole way round from Minehead round to Poole,

thanking those coastguards and those excise men for the privilege, yeah.

Tim's given me a great start.

And I'm glad I've soaked up the views,

because just ahead of me, they disappear into a wooded shroud.

There's barely a glimpse of the sea,

but the ancient trees of Culbone Woods more than make up for it.

This is the longest stretch of coast of woodland in the country,

and it's been unchanged for centuries.

For six miles, the coast path is cloaked in its canopy.

And nestled deep in the heart of this forest is a tiny structure

even older than the trees themselves.

CHORAL SINGING

This is St Beuno's Church.

It's thought to be the smallest in England.

The only way of accessing the church is by walking the coast path.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty.

But that doesn't stop its dedicated congregation.

Today, they are four-strong.

Well, six, if you count our four-legged friends.

Stand for the holy gospel.

Glory be to thee, oh, Lord.

Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain

and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.

This word about him spread throughout Judea

and all the surrounding country.

Here ends the holy gospel.

ORGAN RECITAL

Culbone Church is in the Domesday Book.

The rector here is Colin Burke.

Colin, I enjoyed that. I particularly enjoyed it with such a small congregation.

It felt very intimate. And is that a typical size?

We usually manage five or six on Sunday.

We meet every fortnight.

And in view of the fact there are only nine people living in the entire parish,

it's a pretty good percentage.

Percentage-wise, it's probably a national record!

I think the cathedral would be pleased if they could manage that.

THEY LAUGH

And why here? Is this a special, sacred spot?

If you could tell me that, I would be very pleased. I don't know!

There was never really a village here.

It was just a church built in a hollow in the woods.

From the church, the coast path leads deeper into the woodland.

But eventually, the views are back.

I'm leaving Somerset for North Devon,

and the picturesque village of Lynemouth.

Remember, it's slippery on the wet stuff.

Matthew Oxenham's family have fished here for generations.

All right, you lot, well done.

Now, then, Matthew. Hello, Paul. You all right, mate?

Family business here today! Very nice to see you.

This is when it all comes right. The tide's in, the weather's calm.

That happens three times a year in Lynemouth. Ha!

And it looks like a whole next generation of seafarers.

We've got plenty of crew on board today.

All right, I'm ready. Can I get on?

Catch hold of the post and we'll cast off. Fantastic. Thank you.

Today, Matthew and his family are fishing for lobster.

He's going to show me how it's done.

So we've got two types of bait. Yeah.

You've got gurnard.

The lobsters have a good sense of smell and poor sense of sight. Yes.

So you need the fish to be stinky. All right, great.

You've got to use the dogfish, as well. Let's have a look.

Dogfish have got very tough skins. Yeah.

And it takes a lot longer for the meat to start falling apart.

Ah, so, this lasts longer? It'll last longer.

You give them a taste of gurnard to start with

and leave them with the dogfish.

How long are you going to have the pots in for?

It depends on the time of year, but a week might be average.

First of all, a bit of dogfish. Yeah. Sling him in.

Just one? One, and then a gurnard.

Watch the spikes on the gurnard, they hurt your hand.

One fish, one gurnard, yeah.

One fish, one gurnard. One fish, one gurnard. You've got the hang of this.

There you are, easy. Now, this is the spot for the first pot.

We've got to put half a dozen out here. OK.

There we go. He'll sink to the seabed and stay there for a week.

The next job is to haul up the pots Matthew sent down last week.

With any luck, they'll be full.

Two of them! Two lobsters! Look at that!

Holy smokes! Bring them in?

There you go. One little lobster. Look at that!

They've got two sorts of claw, lobster.

Not always on the right and left, as these are.

That one would break your fingers. Yep.

And that one's quite quick, like a pair of scissors.

Little shrimps.

Great combination, one that's slow and powerful and one that's fast.

'With dinner aboard, we're headed east.

'There's something just around the corner

'that Matthew says I simply cannot miss.'

The cliffs near Lynemouth host all kinds of nesting sea birds.

What kind of birds have we got here?

We've come to the first colony of kittiwakes,

which look like seagulls, but they're not, they're smaller.

And they actually make a nest, which the other birds don't.

It's interesting, because these ledges look as if they lay back a little bit.

Just perfect. Further down and further up the coast,

the angle of the rocks is different,

so the birds know exactly what they're doing.

They've come to the right place.

Amongst the kittiwakes, you've got the black-and-white birds. There's two types.

There's chocolate guillemots and black razorbills.

'Unlike the graceful kittiwake,

'the guillemot and razorbill are almost comical when they fly.

'But their short wings are perfect for swimming.'

With guillemots, your first flight is the one you've got to get right

because when you jump off the cliff,

if you don't get it right, that's it.

'It's a real treat to see these birds in such a spectacular setting.

'And to get a new perspective on the Exmoor coastline.'

It's absolutely great to swap the rhythm of walking for the rhythm of the sea.

There you go. With the sea, it's tide and time,

and that means it's time to go home.

Thank you.

BELL TOLLS

GULLS CRY

After all that action, I'm more than happy to skip the steep climb up

to Lynemouth's double-decker town of Lynton and hop on the cliff railway.

It's been here since 1888.

There's something wonderfully nostalgic about travelling like this.

And, of course, it's the perfect way to soak up the view.

But there's barely time to get comfortable

before I'm back on the path.

And just ahead of me is a spectacular landscape,

the Valley of the Rocks.

The rocks in these gnarly formations are around a million years old.

Many people have speculated as how they came to be here.

But the one I like best is a local legend.

On a Sunday, a group of druids were up here having a terrific old time,

drinking, dancing, hooting, making merry.

The devil saw them and turned them instantly into stone.

And here they remain, frozen forever in situ.

Exmoor has been stunning, but it's time to move on.

GULLS CRY

As I head further into North Devon, the scenery changes.

Dark, jagged rocks stretch out into the deep, like fingers.

It's easy to see why this area became known as a ship's graveyard.

I'm stopping off at the forebodingly named, Morte Point.

From down here, you can really appreciate just how dangerous it was

for sailors passing these shores.

The sight of these rocks lurching out of the sea

like the spines of a mighty stegosaurus

was enough to make even the toughest mariner's blood run cold.

In the days of sail, many a ship's crew met a grisly end here.

And it wasn't just the rocks that sailors had to contend with.

The villagers of Mortehoe were dangerous, too.

They were infamous wreckers and smugglers.

If a ship ran aground here, the villagers might just murder

any survivors and steal their cargo.

They became known as the feared Morte Men.

And sailors who were shipwrecked here

would rather drown than come ashore.

Today, the villagers of Mortehoe are not nearly so fearsome,

and the most the average walker will come up against is a sheep or two.

They belong to local farmer, David Kennard.

Oh, yeah, wow!

Oh, this is a great spot.

And all of what we see here is what you farm?

There's a couple of hundred acres here and then a little bit on the other side of the road

that I rent from the National Trust.

But it's a lot of acres, but it's a rough farm, you know.

It's rough, coastal heathland, they call it. OK.

Lots of rock, lots of gorse, lots of bracken

with a bit of grass in between for my sheep.

What kind do you have? The flock originally was based around Romney,

from the Romney Marsh in Kent.

And it's the most widespread sheep in the world.

The reason being it's a really hardy sheep.

In the winter, the wind blows, the rain blows,

the storms blow in and you've got to have a tough sheep.

I'd imagine without a good dog,

you could never work the sheep in this land.

It would be hopeless, you know?

The sheep know when you haven't got a dog with them.

They'll run, they'll hide, they'll run in the opposite direction.

They'll run straight past you and virtually laugh at you.

Once you've got a dog with you, they suddenly think,

"Oh, we'd better behave now".

And that's what Fly's all about.

So, shall we send her off? Yeah, great. Love to see it.

So a little right-hand command is...

HE WHISTLES

Wow!

So if I just...

HIGH-PITCHED WHISTLE

You see her just picked up here, on the path? She's right behind there!

So she's come up behind the sheep. Oh, wow!

She's stopped and she's asking, "What do you want me to do now?"

HE WHISTLES

Now, the sheep always, always drop down on to the lower path here.

They never walk on the main path.

Why do they do that? That's because they're sheep

and sheep are the most ridiculous creatures ever born.

HE WHISTLES

BLEATING

Obviously, along here, there's some nasty little drops.

It's only 30 or 40 foot down,

but that's quite far enough if you're a sheepdog.

So I've got to be really careful

where I'd ask her to pass those sheep, to turn them.

BLEATING

HE WHISTLES

So it's just a little right, asking her to go on a bit,

and then a slowing-up whistle.

HE WHISTLES

They're close to that edge, aren't they? Yeah. RIGHT!

They're right on that edge there.

And Fly has just obviously got them away. Yeah.

HE WHISTLES

Oh, look at her go!

So she's now about 600 yards away, something like that.

Working down there. Now, the wind's not bad.

It's certainly not with us.

But even at this range, her hearing is absolutely perfect.

It's extraordinary what these dogs can hear.

BLEATING

Let's just move her on now, just give her a little bit.

HE WHISTLES

I love to work Fly like this.

This is what border collies are all about.

This is why they're so different from any other breed.

You take a tiny puppy, eight weeks old,

you select it, and then over the next three years, you train it,

and you end up with something you can take out here

and here she is, you know, 600 yards away, taking every little command.

And just being such an important part of my working life.

To me, it's just incredible.

Fly, Fly, Fly, come on! There's a good girl. Wow!

Well done. What a great thing! Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And she absolutely loves it.

My journey has already been full of contrasts.

But as I cross the vast, sandy bay of Woolacombe,

I get the chance to see the coast path from a new perspective.

Since the age of 18, Sam Jeyes has had one obsession.

Trying to fly like a bird.

All right, Sam? How's it going? Hello, Paul. How are you?

All right. I understand you've got something lined up for me. Yes, we do today.

We're going to take you flying in the sky, over the coastline.

Well, this sounds absolutely great. How are we going to do it?

We're going to use a tandem hang glider,

which is this beautiful wing we have here.

And that will allow both of us to fly together.

I'll be the pilot and you'll be the passenger.

Great. We're going together? We will be.

And we will soar exactly the same way as the birds do.

Using the lift coming off the hill.

Wow! It is a perfect way to fly.

Now, I've done a lot of crazy things in my time, but never this.

You're good to go. It feels great.

Ready to go. I'm ready.

PAUL LAUGHS

Nothing to do now but hold on tight.

OK, clear! Run, run, run, run, run!

Wow! We're flying, buddy!

How does that feel, pretty good? Sam, this feels so fantastic!

Wow!

The glider's got a lot of different speeds, Paul. Right.

Its regular speed that it flies at, which we call trimspeed,

is where it is now, where I'm not really holding it at all.

No, OK. But if you want to go faster, we can pull in on the speed,

which means pulling the bar towards us. OK.

So we go like this, look. Oh, yeah, wow!

And it speeds it up pretty quick. No kidding!

How high do you think we are here, about a couple of hundred feet?

We're about 600 above the beach now.

600 above the beach? Wow!

We're going faster downwind. Can you feel the speed?

No kidding. There's a sense of acceleration there, isn't there?

We're zooming around now. How fast are we going?

This is about 60-70 kilometres an hour.

Now, if you look down to our right,

you can see the coastal path going through the dunes there.

Yeah. We're right over the coastal path.

And it's very good to just see it going off into the distance.

That's right. Because that's my route.

That's the scene for me. We've got the Atlantic Ocean,

we've got these beautiful dunes and we've got us up in the wind.

PAUL CHUCKLES

So what we'll do, we'll build the height up along this section

and then we'll fly over the edge of the cars. Yeah.

When we come into land, keep in the same position as you're in now.

Right. We're going to land on the wheels. I'm ready.

The sheep aren't quite sure what to make of us. No.

They'll move out of the way quickly. Yeah?

Slow it down.

PAUL LAUGHS

Well done. That was just awesome!

How was that, good? Unbelievable.

More beautiful than I could've imagined.

What did you enjoy most about the flight?

I thought the views were great. And especially for me,

to see the South West path heading off the way I'm going

was a really great feeling. There's a sense of energy about that.

It's a different angle from above, to look at it, isn't it?

Yeah. It was great. So this has energised me for more walking.

You've got a long road ahead.

GULLS CRY

My next stop is bringing me back down to earth.

I'm headed deep within the largest sand dune system in Western Europe.

Braunton Burrows.

Braunton Burrows is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Internationally important for its wildlife.

But as beautiful as they seem today, these dunes harbour secrets

of conflict and war.

In World War II, the dunes were used by the Allies as a practice area

for the largest seaborne invasion in history.

The Normandy beach landings.

MEDIA BROADCAST: Tanks to each assault section lend supporting fire to the attack.

GUNFIRE

Securing a foothold on the beach.

Richard Bass is an expert on this period of North Devon's history.

This was the only area in the United Kingdom where the American troops

were actually trained in the new tactics

for the assault upon the beaches of Normandy.

And is that because this beach is a dead ringer for Normandy?

Yes, but nobody knew that at the time.

It was quite a surprise to everybody, particularly the troops,

that it was in fact a duplicate, a replica, of Omaha Beach.

Flat sand and bluffs right behind.

It was absolutely chaotic.

The American training involved using live ammunition,

live explosives, every single time.

Really, just to sort of acclimatise the troops

to what battle conditions were really like.

And was it common knowledge what was going on here?

No, the local population had absolutely no idea.

They knew there were a lot of Americans here

and they knew it was very secret.

And people, obviously, were used to wartime secrecy.

They didn't ask questions.

So they knew, quite obviously,

that there were thousands of pounds of bombs being dropped on the dunes?

Yes. But they didn't know why. No, not a clue.

For six months, 14,000 American troops trained here.

But as suddenly as they came, they were gone.

On 6th June, 1944, they launched their attack on Normandy.

Could you say what it would have been like if this training hadn't existed?

It's probably best summed up by Paul Thompson,

who was the commandant here,

who said that without the beaches of North Devon,

the success of his D-Day simply wouldn't have happened.

WAVES CRASH

It's a legacy that hasn't been forgotten.

And today, locals are commemorating North Devon's role in the invasion.

It's a glimpse into the past.

Oh!

And this is the centrepiece of the day's programme,

a D-Day re-enactment.

YELLING

APPLAUSE

The event here might be a bit of fun,

but it marks a sombre moment in our history.

Despite all their training, the Allies took a pounding,

losing almost 4,500 men in just one day.

Even so, the invasion was a success.

It gave them an important foothold from which to begin

the liberation of German-occupied Europe from Nazi control.

And ultimately led to the Allied victory on the Western Front.

And it all began here, in a quiet seaside village in North Devon.

The coast path of Somerset and North Devon

has been every bit as wild and varied as I'd hoped.

And my final stop of this stretch is the most dramatic yet.

Hartland Point.

GULLS CRY

This is where the Bristol Channel meets the Atlantic Ocean,

and the currents are fierce.

The Romans used to call Hartland Point...

ECHOES: ..the Promontory of Hercules!

And it certainly lives up to its name.

True to its Roman name,

this promontory is gathering the elements.

But somewhere over there, shrouded in mist, is North Cornwall.

And that's where I'm headed.

'Next week on Coastal Path,

'I'll be put through my paces by Newquay's young life-savers.'

I didn't get one!

'And channelling my inner Turner in St Ives.'

Look at that!

That's all right, that, isn't it? Yeah.

If you squint a little bit.

As spaceship Earth spirals towards its finale,