Episode 2 Kate Humble: Off the Beaten Track

You might think that this is a Canadian forest,

the African Savannah,

the Scottish mountains,

but this is my adopted home, Wales,

and the many countries within it.

I've always been drawn to remote places around the world,

but only recently I started questioning myself.

Why am I travelling to these far flung parts of the world,

to look for authentic, intact communities,

when there are communities like that right on my door step?

Wales is home to less than 5% of the UK population,

with most people concentrated in the south,

and the sparsely inhabited countryside is exactly what

attracted me to move here ten years ago.

So now, I'm now travelling the less trodden areas of Wales

with my best Welsh friend, Teg,

to discover how our landscapes are being shaped

and how they are shaping its people.

-Shwmai!

-Shwmai!

So far, Teg had a blast herding conservation sheep

on the Great Orme.

-Teg, Teg!

-Well done, Teg!

We've done some four paw driving...

Mush, mush!

..and I nearly froze my butt off.

I can't speak, it's too cold!

This is Wales - Off The Beaten Track.

Of course, I may only be accepted in these communities

because I've got the right nationality of dog.

This week, our journey starts in southern Snowdonia,

at Coed y Brenin, which is Welsh for the King's Wood.

But the true king of this land is the fallow deer.

The largest mammals around, with a controlled population of 3-400,

their presence can also be troublesome.

They munch on the sapplings, resulting in losses for the

timber industry.

They destroy habitat for other creatures and cause as many as

ten car crashes a year on the road through the forest.

It's the crack of dawn.

I'm joining wildlife ranger Iori Jones,

to see how he deals with these elusive creatures,

and within minutes on the forestry road,

we get our first glimpse of a deer.

There's one.

A doe.

But that was a doe, a female, and right now Iori's job is to

reduce the population of bucks, the males.

The idea of the cull is not eradicate the deer?

No, it's just to try control the balance.

So, essentially, because there are no big predators that can take

out the deer, you have to be, you have to be the apex predator?

That's right, yeah.

And that's how you kind of can restore

-a more natural balance of things?

-Yeah, yeah.

The fallow deer roam through 9,000 acres of forest,

and it's like looking for a needle in a hay stack -

even with Iori's impressive tracking skills.

They've been marking the trees with their antlers. Oh, yeah.

Actually on this hill there was a rut stand on this piece.

-Oh, was there?

-Yeah.

-Was there?

-Yeah.

So you'd have had a male basically trying to bring females into this area?

-That's it, yeah.

-So lots of lovely bellowing and things.

-That's it, yeah.

-I bet you can do a good bellow can't you?

The fallow deer when they're calling on ruts, which we call a grunt,

and they go...

HE GRUNTS

So, you know, try and imitate them sometimes.

See if I was a doe, I couldn't resist that.

THEY LAUGH

Yeah.

But we better get on with it, because this is our last chance this

year to track a buck, as the culling season closes today.

To keep the population sustainable, Iori has a quota to

cull 80 to 100 deer a year.

The meat from the kills comes back to the food chain in the form

of venison burgers.

WHISPERING: There's one just over this crest.

Stay there, stay there.

GUNSHOT

The important difference is, this isn't sport.

I know, from a conservation point of view, it's absolutely necessary.

If you've got too many deer that means that the

plants in the forest are under huge pressure from effectively

being over browsed and over grazed, and that then has

a knock on effect on other animals that live in the forest.

So even though, for many people, the idea of killing beautiful animals

like deer is too horrible to contemplate,

actually, if you want a really good, healthy ecosystem -

and humans have interfered with it so much over some many hundreds

of years - this is the only option.

We have to play the big predators.

And I like the fact that, you know, it's an animal that doesn't

go to waste, that it gets eaten and it is about as environmentally

friendly as far as meat is concerned that you can get.

And it is delicious.

-Isn't it, Iori?

-Yes.

THEY LAUGH

I don't know about you,

but I'm quite looking forward to venison for breakfast.

Cor, blimey.

You watch you don't trip.

No, I'll try not to trip.

So after delivering the carcass to the chiller for the butcher

to collect later, I treat Iori to my cooking, to taste the meat

from a previous cull.

-There you are.

-Thank you very much.

-A well deserved breakfast.

-Iechyd da.

-Mmm. Oh, my goodness.

-Very nice.

They are good.

Teg having a burger?

HE LAUGHS

You've been very good today.

You didn't do any work, though, did you?

Do you think you're allowed burger?

Do you think so, really?

Here you go.

Spoiled dog.

As we continue heading south,

the mountain in the background is calling for us.

Cadair Idris is a popular spot for walkers,

who come and go in their thousands.

But families have been farming this mountainscape for centuries.

I've come to Pennant Farm to meet three generations of farmers -

Ken and Lisa Markham, and their shepherds,

Goronwy Williams and his grandson, Gerwyn,

who help me realise just how heritage plays a central role here.

When you buy a hill farm or take over a hill farm,

-the flock stays with the farm.

-Is that right?

-Yes, every hill farm.

-Oh, yeah.

Cattle, no, but sheep, the flock, because they're bred here...

-That's fascinating.

-..they wouldn't live up there.

So the sheep that you've got up on the hill now, would they be

directly related to the sheep that you were looking after in 1961?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they all are. Yeah, and before even Goronwy even

-came here with Mr Tudor.

-Even next door would know that...

-Every family.

-So the community isn't just generations of people

-it's generations of livestock as well?

-No, yes.

-Yes.

Everyone is utterly connected to this part of the land?

-Keep everything we've been talking about.

-Keep it within the valley.

As it is, local hands, keep it within the valley,

keep the same people. We go and help next door to gather sheep,

they come and help us. Goronwy, Gerwyn, Goronwy's brother.

So keep that sense of community?

Yeah, the old traditional farming going.

However, today we're not here for the sheep.

Ken's cousin, Will Evans, is keeping alive the centuries' old tradition

of driving cattle up to the 900 metre summit for the summer.

I'm a new to this game, but Teg is in her element.

Teg, come here! Come on, don't push them so hard.

The plan is simple -

walk behind these 40 pregnant cows,

for four miles up the mountain,

until they reach their summer grazing grounds.

This is Teg's perfect day.

This three month, extreme pre-natal bootcamp programme not only

gets them fit for calving, but also trims down the tall grasses,

so that the sheep are able to graze the shorter pasture.

You have a very different relationship with the mountain

than if I was just here as a tourist coming walking to the summit.

When you're here seeing the mountain as part of a working landscape.

Yeah, the mountain, a lot of people just see it as a walk by during the

day and take a few photos, but all year round,

it's almost like a living animal. It breathes.

It's got a pulse, you know. You send stock up,

it produces the fodder for them during the summer,

and over the winter it gets a break.

I think it all balances up nice between the cattle grazing,

and sheep grazing - from wildlife to farm animals.

You've got to just go with the pulse.

Sorry, is that your dog?

Is it? Yeah, Bonnie!

HE WHISTLES

Come on, Bonnie!

I tell you, there's nothing worse than walkers coming,

-and their dogs chasing the sheep...

-KATE LAUGHS

It really gets on my nerves.

Thinking about that, we've lost your cattle.

We only lost sight of the cows for one minute.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the mountain,

Ken stumbles upon them,

though he hasn't got them for long either.

They've gone home. Sorry, Will!

Thanks, Ken.

Oh, look, they're turning back. That's new.

That hasn't happened before.

-Oh, we've got cows up there, that's what's happened.

-Oh, shoot.

This is mutiny!

-Teg, come here.

-Come on, Bonnie!

WILL CLICKS TONGUE

Yeah, they're back on the road now, Will!

I think. No, they're not. Teg.

And this Welsh weather isn't helping us see any clearer,

for every step we take, the fewer cows we can see.

And, believe me, this is as tough as it looks.

Eventually, we deliver the cattle to the upper hills -

at least we think we have.

I don't know about you,

but I'm wet pretty much all the way through now.

Oh, not bad.

But I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Well, there you go.

And, certainly, nor would your cattle by the looks of things.

They've completely disappeared.

No. They're long gone. It worked pretty well on the whole.

-So is this it, is this is where they, basically...?

-Yeah.

..are now free to roam from here?

Yeah, they've got about 800/900 acres of eating grass,

-and having a good summer holiday, I hope.

-Wow.

I hope the weather picks up for them, though.

Yeah, they're not going to be able to take many photos to send home.

-No.

-Talk about the view.

-But one important job we've got left,

and if you don't do it, you'll have to do it all over again.

THEY LAUGH

These farmers must have mountain water running through their

veins to deal with the volatile conditions up here.

We take shelter in the shepherds hut, and within half an hour,

the weather breaks - suddenly revealing the true magnificent

colours of this landscape.

That tea has worked miracles. It's a completely different day out here.

God, Ken, it's absolutely staggering.

You can see the view now.

-It must mean that you do have to be incredibly adaptable.

-Oh, yeah.

Cos, I mean, it does feel like a completely different day now

-than it did this morning.

-Matter of half an hour.

-Yeah.

It's cleared up within an hour, half an hour.

-We have to change our plans from one day to the next.

-Yeah.

We rely a lot on the weather forecast man, Derek Brockway.

Good old Derek.

A lot of Derek, yes, quite. So, yes, shwmai.

Shwmai.

But, no, all jokes aside - we're in the hands of the gods up here

a bit with the weather.

Love it or hate it, the Welsh weather plays the central

role in shaping this lush landscape.

I leave Cadair Idris behind and head towards mid-Wales,

to investigate an interest of mine, and meet a family harnessing all of

the elements that Wales can throw at them just to turn on their lights.

Scott, Ruth and their daughter Chenoa, came from the midlands

to mid-Wales eight years ago with one ambition in mind -

to live a green, zero-impact life without giving up on their mod cons.

How on earth did you find this place?

I've been coming here since I was three weeks old.

-Three weeks?!

-Yeah, my mum and dad found it.

So you've taken it over. So it was a sort of holiday cottage,

was it, really, when you were coming here as a child?

Yeah, I spent all my school holidays here.

Once the place where Led Zeppelin created their third album,

today, Bron Yr Aur is a homely living experiment.

It's off grid, isn't it? So that means...what?

It's never had mains electric.

Yeah, we're not connected to any services.

I really like the idea it stays totally without any wires.

In order to be able to live in the modern world,

and have some electrics, my father invested in a whole

-host of renewable technologies to make it possible to be here.

-Yeah.

Sounds idyllic - living off the land with minimum bills,

but their commitment to planet earth, and generating their

own natural power is hard work.

At the moment, you know, it feels like, well, you've got the wind.

I can see you've got the panels there.

This is some of the technologies that I use at the farm,

but we also have mains electricity.

Because, you know, we've always got that buffer,

but the other thing is that I don't have to be as obsessed clearly.

You have to know what weather is coming in.

-You have to live by the weather.

-But are there days when you think,

"Well, actually, I'd quite like to, I don't know, watch telly," and Mum

and Dad say, "Sorry, you can't. There's not enough electricity"?

-Does that happen?

-Yeah.

And at that point, do you think, "Why don't

"I live in a normal house like my friends?"

A little, but I don't really mind.

-Good answer.

-Good answer.

-Well done!

Well trained. Ask them for a fiver later.

The family's entire existence appears to be based

around numbers and dials.

-This is the hub of it all, really.

-So this is it? Crikey.

Yeah, this is what makes it possible, really.

How...? Come on, admit it -

how many hours a day do you stand here looking at those dials?

Only three.

No, I'm getting it down.

You've got everything coming in here to central points.

You've got hydro power, wind power, solar power.

-You've got hydro as well?

-Oh, yeah.

-I haven't seen that yet.

We've got a tiny hydro that just about works.

See this dial at the top here with the yellow on?

-This one here? Yeah.

-So this is telling us how much hydropower

-we're getting.

-OK.

-If it's on the zero at the bottom,

-there's none.

-Yeah.

-And it is only a little bit above the zero,

which indicates that we may not be

-getting as much power as we might be...

-Right.

..given we've had rain the last few days.

Yeah, I remember that rain. So we trudge up the hill to their

hydro power plant to investigate the problem.

And this has to be seen to be believed.

So are you saying that all your hydroelectric that you

generate comes from this tiny little stream?

That's extraordinary.

I was slightly expecting...

Well, certainly, something maybe three times the size of that.

Absolutely. The box is purely to fill with water.

-OK, so that's a sort of water storage tank, effectively?

-Yeah.

-OK.

-Yeah.

-What do you think has gone wrong?

-It can be bracken or leaves or whatever.

-Yeah.

But probably stone at this time of year.

Where this sort of mesh filter is there could be blockage in there

that's stopping the water flow going through as effectively as it should?

I hope it's that, yeah. Otherwise I don't know. So we'll see.

Otherwise you don't know?

-That's that, yeah.

-Averagely, I'm here twice a week straddling the

-stream and clearing out.

-And, obviously, that's whatever the

-weather and every time of year?

-Yeah. It gets very cold.

There's a whole load of stuff that's been washed down in the heavy rain.

Right. Yeah.

Blocking the first layer and once we've cleared it all,

we should see an overflow from the big black tank.

There's just lots of nature going on, isn't there?

-KATE LAUGHS

-It's trying to get the better of us.

-Yeah.

-If you get a hazelnut going in, that will go all the way down

-the pipe and block the hydro.

-Really?

We even once had a frog get all the way down the other end.

No way! Well, that's overflowing beautifully now.

Definitely.

The water rushes down the pipes building up pressure until it

reaches a water wheel next to the cottage.

This wheel is connected to a motor, generating electricity.

It almost looks like something you could throw a clay pot on.

Now lets see if our efforts have paid off.

This is going to be really underwhelming, isn't it? I can see.

At the moment, it's still a third.

We've just climbed up the hill, done all that,

-chatted about all how good it is.

-And it's the same.

-Hmm.

Do you just hope that it fixes itself?

-That's the first port of call always.

-Is it, is it?

With anything in life, just wait a bit and it might just work.

-Yeah, It might just work.

-I wonder why that happened.

I can't believe it's not... Actually, I really thought that's...

Is that a bit concerning?

I have to say, I'm really blown away by what you're doing here.

You've made a choice to try and live in a way that is as low

impact as possible, but is as normal as possible,

and, actually, you're being very honest

about how hard that really is.

THEY LAUGH

Cheers, I think that's fair to say.

-Yeah, that's...

-Yeah.

-What do you think, Chenoa,

do you agree with that? It is hard?

But is it worth it? I mean, is it worth the slog up the hill to

unblock the filters for the hydro in the middle of winter?

Is it worth, you know, not being able to watch telly

when you want to because there isn't enough power? Is it worth it?

Well, do you know, two or three years ago,

there was a possibility that we wouldn't be able to stay here.

The day I found out I might not be able to stay, Kate...

Oh, Ruth! You know, your emotional attachment

to this place is extraordinary.

There's a Welsh word "hiraeth," which doesn't directly translate to

English, but comes to mean sort of atmosphere of a place,

encapsulating everything about it and that sort of sums it up, really.

-Yeah.

-I absolutely salute you for what you're doing here.

-It's brave, it's bonkers and it's quite brilliant.

-Thank you.

And I know it's not hydro tea, but it's still not bad,

and it's in a Muppet mug.

-I mean, you know, what could be better?

-Yeah.

The key to life in rural Wales is all about identifying the

best nature can offer and making the most of it.

Imagine capturing the essence of this landscape in a bottle.

Six miles away, in the Dyfi Valley, I follow my nose to meet someone

who has done exactly that.

Now, you might think I'm talking perfume, but, no.

-Look at that.

-Yeah, perfect.

-Are you getting in?

-Yeah, I'm going to get in.

-OK, cool.

If you like a tipple, this is one for you.

Pete Cameron and I are making gin.

It is a proper Dr Seuss machine, isn't it?

-HE LAUGHS

-Yeah.

Much like perfume, every gin is different.

The common component is juniper berries -

one of the few ingredients that isn't sourced locally.

But Pete's gin is unique

because of the other botanicals he forages nearby.

Teg and I join him on a quest for extraordinary aromatics,

starting at his farm.

Where are we headed?

Well, we'll head up through the new wood.

This is a five acre wood that we've planted recently.

With gin in mind or with the environment in mind or both?

Both of those things, but primarily to stop me

rolling my tractor over on the steepest bit of the field.

KATE LAUGHS Very good answer.

To produce three different types of gin,

Pete uses a total of 29 botanicals,

20 of which come from the Dyfi Valley.

So I recognise this. This is lovely hawthorn isn't it?

That's right, yeah.

If we have a sniff of those, there's a really beautiful deep,

sweetness to it, a honey note in there.

Now, you see, I'm going to be horribly honest,

-given we've only just met...

-Yes.

I always thought hawthorn has a slightly uriney smell about it.

It's got an aromatic in it, which is also generated by rotting flesh.

-Ah.

-It's not the entire smell of rotting flesh.

-No.

-But it's the slight, the slightly sickly sweet flavour.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-So you wouldn't want this way in the foreground.

This gives us a nice little bit of honey in the background

-of the gin.

-And speaking of background smells, it seems

Teg has been rolling in some of her own pungent findings.

-Aw!

-Oh, that's bad!

Yeah, I know, she's found another... Is that your botanicals?

Essence of badger poo? You're a horror.

No. I really don't... No, I don't love you.

No, no, bugger off. No. No.

Is there a dog pound near here?

Dog pound!

If anyone wants a ginger and white and brown dog,

just give me a call.

THEY LAUGH

The key ingredient in Pete's gin is sourced down the valley.

With special permission, we forage on the wild, ungrazed wetlands

of Cors Dyfi nature reserve - home of ospreys in mid-Wales.

-This is bog myrtle.

-Bog myrtle. Never heard of that.

And if you pick a bit and squish it up in your fingers...

-Oh, my goodness.

-It's got a lot of... Well, gin flavours in there.

I was going to say, it does have a sort of gin smell about it.

It's lovely.

It gives you a beautiful, full-bodied flavour in the gin.

Yeah.

Ooh, I just need a clinky glass and a slice of lemon and I'm away.

Once we've gathered enough, we head to the distillery.

It takes four days with double distillation to finally

produce my favourite drink.

Then is it, she says, trying not to sound desperate,

-then is it ready to drink?

-Then it's ready to go.

As I've worked quite hard today doing an enormous amount

of picking, do you think I can now taste this wonderful sounding gin?

-I think that's a great idea.

-I do too.

-I might have a taste myself.

-Good, OK.

Oh, it's a whisper of tonic on the top.

We don't want to overdo it, do we? Let's see how that's come out.

OK.

Right, I'll see you, Pete.

That is so smooth. It just, it tastes of nature.

-I can taste the smell of the bog myrtle.

-Mmm.

It's absolutely there.

So this is the Dyfi Valley in a glass, basically?

That's what we're aiming for,

that's the spirit of the Dyfi Valley.

I quite like the Dyfi Valley, I have to say.

-PETE LAUGHS

-Good.

-Well done you, Pete.

-Cheers.

-Congratulations. Thank you.

Though the Dyfi Valley is recognised by the United Nations

for its biodiversity, just south of here, there's one area doing

more to maintain the health of our planet than we give it credit for.

For centuries, it's acted as a formidable barrier,

dividing east from west,

and north from south.

It is the least populated area in Wales.

Teg and I are standing at the summit of what is

known as the Plynlimon Massif.

We're on the north side of the Cambrian Mountains.

This treeless landscape is more important than just a big

wild area. It is the equivalent...

And I know you're going to look at me and go, "She's mad."

..it's the equivalent of the Amazon rainforest.

This is the most significant environmental area

in the whole of Wales.

Much of the Plynlimon area is wetland.

To the untrained eye, a boggy, unproductive landscape.

But in actual fact, it provides us with the most vital

environmental services - filtering water, preventing flooding,

and acting as a mass storage facility for carbon.

I meet with wildlife trust conservationist, Dr Liz Lewis-Reddy,

to help me understand what my eyes cannot see.

What's at the heart of this landscape that gives it

the value that you say it has?

Well, I have to say, a lot of that is what's under our feet,

-and that's peat soil.

-OK.

-Carbon is in every living thing.

-Right.

The unique feature of a peat bog is that it's wet,

it's an oxygen deprived environment,

and whenever you deprive an environment of oxygen,

things don't break down.

So in a peat bog all that dead plant material is underwater,

and because of that, the carbon isn't being released.

-And so that carbon is just locked in.

-That's right,

and it gets locked in over millennia.

Just imagine just how much carbon is then stored

in that water-logged environment.

The water is held here by the sphagnum moss,

which acts like a sponge.

If the water is drained, all the carbon stored within it is

released into the atmosphere - turning it into the toxic

greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.

Unlike the Amazon that absorbs CO2, these bogs stop it from being

created in the first place.

However, in the 1950s, this balance was broken when local farmers

drained the land for grazing.

The reason why farmers drained it post-war

was because government said, "Go out and drain your uplands

"in order to generate more food for British people."

There wasn't an awareness that when you dried out peat,

you released all these greenhouse gases.

-Well, no-one knew.

-Exactly.

-And no-one knew the term greenhouse gases after the war.

-Exactly.

So it's one of those becoming aware after the fact.

To put the importance of the Welsh bogs into perspective -

if they were to shrink in depth by just one metre,

the carbon dioxide released would be more than the annual

emissions caused by fossil fuels in Wales.

For the past eight years, the Wildlife Trust has been blocking old

drainage ditches, with remarkable results.

We've risen the water table on this site by five centimetres.

Wow. So that is holding enormous amounts of water.

-Millions of litres of water.

-And lots and lots of carbon.

Millions of tonnes of carbon.

The Plynlimon project pilot scheme has been running for seven years,

and in this time they have managed to restore the equivalent of over

1,000 rugby pitches of bogland.

Their aim is to do the same over another 39,000 hectares

of bogs, to safeguard our future and help us realise that some things are

best kept unchanged.

Next time - we learn how to flog sheep...

-28.5.

-Can't we have a little bit more?

You've got two ladies in the ring.

We need more than that.

LAUGHTER

..discover the wonders of the Welsh dark skies...

This is the most fantastic treat.

THEY GASP

-That's... I mean, it's like a flying saucer!

-Yeah.

..and Teg has her first family reunion.

This is like my happiest moment is standing here watching her work.

-Proud granny, proud granny.

-I am, I am.