The Scottish Highlands Britain by Bike


The Scottish Highlands

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60 years ago, an extraordinary man called Harold Briercliffe

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wrote a series of books about his great passion - cycling.

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Largely forgotten, these overlooked gems were the culmination of a lifelong journey. His destination?

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The whole of Britain on two wheels.

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Over half a century later,

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and equipped with one of his reliable cycle touring guides, I'll be re-tracing his tracks...

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And riding his very own bicycle - a Dawes Super Galaxy.

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This was the ultimate touring machine of its day.

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I'll be taking it on one of Harold's classic journeys

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through the magnificent countryside he explored all those years ago.

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I'm going in search of Britain by bike.

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Welcome to Scotland. Today I'm in the Highlands.

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The western Highlands of Scotland.

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Truly a wilderness. Mountains clad in bracken and heather.

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Lonely glens. Lochs with castles standing proud on their shores.

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This is Kintail, a rugged, unspoilt area of the North West Highlands

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opposite the Isle of Skye.

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Cycling author Harold Briercliffe simply loved the Highlands.

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There are roughly 300 miles of mountains and lochs and glens and coastline.

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He described it as "the most vivid and rugged landscape in Britain".

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He also said that he best way to discover it was by bicycle, and who am I to argue?

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This beautiful landscape has a vivid and sometimes bloody history.

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It's seen rebellions and incursions, from warrior queens and invading armies,

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intruders of different kinds, and not all of them human.

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It's a place that outsiders are drawn to.

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Some to celebrate its wildness, others to try to overcome it.

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I'll be uncovering the evidence of their visits on my journey.

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Today's route is 23 miles long, starting near Glen Shiel

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on the shores of Loch Duich,

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heading over a mountain pass and north up the coast to Kylerhea,

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close to the Isle of Skye.

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Then it's back down to Glenelg and inland to Glen Beag

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before finally heading along the lonely path to Sandaig,

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the unlikely setting of for international best-seller.

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My journey starts here at the picture perfect location of the Ratagan Youth Hostel.

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We know Harold Briercliffe came here,

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not just because he wrote about it in his 1948 Touring Guide,

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but also because we've got hold of some of his old photographs taken from almost exactly this spot.

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Harold captured some wonderful views on his Scottish travels.

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He was a prolific photographer, taking pictures to illustrate his guidebooks

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and articles for cycling magazines.

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Here is one with the view from the hostel front, looking along the loch,

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of Harold's wife, Mamie, down at the lochside - with their trusted bikes, of course!

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And this magnificent view of the mountains

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on the north side of Glen Shiel, known as the Five Sisters of Kintail.

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Rochdale-born Harold was an intrepid cyclist

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so his routes aren't always easy -

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this one begins with a climb up the 1100ft Mam Ratagan pass.

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The gradient is mostly one in ten, steepening to one in seven,

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and close to the summit there is a great coil of two hairpin bends.

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This is pretty hard work

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and all you can see around are trees and trees

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and more trees.

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At the top I'm going to meet up with Chris Marsh

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from the Forestry Commission and talk to him about these trees

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and the plans for the forest in the Highlands in the future.

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The growth of trees planted by the Forestry Commission

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prevents a continuous panorama being presented

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during the ascent, but at clearings the picture of Loch Duich,

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backed by the Five Sisters, is striking indeed.

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This may look like natural woodland, but it is in fact an immigrant crop,

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planted in regimented rows, grown to be cut down,

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replanted and harvested all over again.

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Ratagan Forest was established by the Forestry Commission in 1923

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to meet the demands of the national timber industry.

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The dominance of the invading Sitka spruce has been a thorny issue ever since.

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When the Forestry Commission started in the early 20th century,

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they spent a lot of time looking at species from around the world

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and Sitka spruce was chosen because the environment from which it comes from,

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the west coast of America, is perfectly suited to the west coast of Scotland.

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It seems to me that a lot of people have a problem with the Sitka spruce

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because it's an invader, because it's come from so far away.

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Can you appreciate that strength of feeling?

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Yeah, I think the Sitka controversy

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is as much a visitor's perspective

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to see an alien tree planted in geometrical shapes on what's perceived to be a wilderness.

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But of course, these hills have been managed

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for centuries and look the way that they do because of that management.

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Many of these slopes would have been closed-in birch woodland with hazel scrub and holly and rowan.

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Those, over centuries, would have disappeared through this grazing pressure,

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muir burning, heather burning.

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So a lot of the native woodland ended up being confined just to gullies and ravines.

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And then the broad open slopes were the areas the foresters came and planted in the '20s.

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But it's not just the planting, it's the harvesting that most upsets people.

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I know this is a really difficult balance because you're undertaking a commercial enterprise,

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it's time to chop them down, they've all got to come down.

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But you must see, as anyone else sees, how incredibly ugly that can look.

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It's more than just a scar, it can look like a warzone.

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Trees were established here to establish a national timber resource and that can't be forgotten about.

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But certainly in an area like this

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the environmental importance

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of these habitats come up and up the agenda.

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So when the first phase of trees are being harvested, the second phase -

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we're using Scots pine instead of Sitka spruce - but the trees are also being planted

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in a more randomised structure at greater spacings.

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So we're starting to get more of those environmental associations

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which the first phase of densely planted Sitka spruce wasn't giving.

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It's perhaps unrealistic to think that one day this landscape

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will be covered in huge swathes of Caledonian Forest, and some people probably think that the Sitkas

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are native, after all they've now been here for 80 years,

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which is longer than some visitors to Scotland.

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Harold mentions in his books some very well known early visitors to this part of the Highlands.

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In 1773, Dr Johnson and his travelling companion James Boswell came on this very road.

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They struggled a bit, despite the fact that they had horses,

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both up the hill and down it.

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I can't say that I'm struggling downhill. I was going up, though!

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1st September 1773, going downhill on the other side was no easy task.

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As Mr Johnson was a great weight, the two guides agreed he should ride the horses alternately.

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As he rode upon it downhill, it did not go well and he grumbled.

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Hello!

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Johnson and Boswell came here not just to take in the wonderful views,

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but because they were on their way to Skye.

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For centuries, this crossing was the principal gateway from the mainland

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to the Hebrides - a short stretch of water known as the Kylerhea race.

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In the late 18th century, drovers bringing their cattle from the Hebrides over to market

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would wait for these waters to be calm and then drive the cattle across.

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They'd have to swim to the mainland.

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So far my journey has taken me from Ratagan along the Mam Ratagan pass, skirting the village of Glenelg

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and north to the Kylerhea race, and one of Harold's favourite locations.

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Immediately north of the ferry stands the youth hostel of Glenelg.

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Its situation at the road end, without another dwelling in sight on the mainland,

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is amongst the grandest of all the Scottish hostels.

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This used to be the Glenelg Youth Hostel. It's now a private residence.

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It does do B&Bs, but Harold would have been very sad that the youth hostel has been lost

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because he felt that places like this, and the Ratagan Youth Hostel,

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where we started, were crucial stepping stones to explore great outdoors

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for the adventurous explorer.

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And with every one that closes, it makes it that bit harder for walkers

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or cyclists or runners who are trying to get into the landscape.

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And doing so on a very small budget.

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In his book, Harold sings the praises of the Scottish Youth Hostelling Association,

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which had been set up in the 1930s to allow young people to travel and experience other cultures.

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Not simply a dry bed for a weary cyclist, in the late 1940s,

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the hostels were a symbol of freedom and hope -

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a world in which outsiders were not invaders, but welcome guests.

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The SYHA has done much to open up the Highlands to the cycling visitor.

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Thousands of wayfarers who might never have ventured into the Highlands

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have used the hostels and, for small outlay, have seen the finest mountain scenery in the British Isles.

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Following Harold's suggestion, I'm now retracing my tracks,

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heading south, back along the military road towards Glenelg

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and the Bernera Barracks.

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You feel so far away from any sort of major city or town.

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You feel a long way away from pollution.

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From noise pollution as well.

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It's so quiet!

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And it really does feel fresh.

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You can feel it on your skin, in your lungs...

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It's like an inner and outer body wash.

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Despite the peace and serenity of this coastal road,

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it has a chequered military past.

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More than 147,000 Scots were killed in the Great War

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and the casualties from the highland regiments were particularly high.

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I can see the ruin of the Barracks just over there.

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But the Bernera Barracks don't relate to a modern war,

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rather to a bloodsoaked conflict some 200 years earlier,

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just a few years after the Act of Union between Scotland and England.

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In the early 18th century, the barracks were an outpost

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of English-speaking authority in a Gaelic-speaking world.

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When Boswell, a Lowland Scot, brought Dr Johnson through here on their way to the inn at Glenelg,

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he gazed on the lit Barracks with longing.

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As we passed the barracks at Bernera, I would fain have put up there.

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At least I looked at them wishfully, as soldiers have always everything in the best order.

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Historian Jim Hunter is meeting me here to explain why Bernera Barracks

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were built to house an army of outsiders in hostile territory.

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Even with no roof on and no glass in the windows and massive great cracks

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down the walls, these are still very impressive buildings.

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When were the barracks first built?

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They were built in the early 1720s, not long after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

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The Jacobite movement aimed to restore the Catholic House of Stuart

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to the throne, but the Jacobite Highlanders

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were also fighting to defend the old clan system from the intrusion of a London-based government.

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It was from Highlands that they launched a number of rebellions, the most spectacular being in 1715.

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And the last one, in many ways the most successful one,

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being the one that started in 1745

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when a Highland army led by a Stuart Prince,

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famously known as Bonnie Prince Charlie,

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marched south out of the Highlands,

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conquered Scotland by capturing Edinburgh, and then towards the end of 1745,

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invaded England and got, by the beginning of December 1745,

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got as far south as Derby, about 120 miles from London.

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That really terrified the British establishment, the Government of the day.

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And it's around that sort of incursion,

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that rebellious activity in the Highlands, the notion of Highlands as reservoir of rebels

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and dangerous people of that kind, it's around all of that

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that you get the push to establish garrisons here,

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construct roads, generally subject the area to effective British control, British rule.

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Was it a success? Were the barracks a successful place to be stationed?

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I think militarily they weren't a success at all.

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They were built after one rebellion

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in order to prevent another one and manifestly they didn't

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because another rebellion followed 20, 30 years later.

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In fact, the roads which were intended to allow the British army to move rapidly into the Highlands

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were used very effectively by the Jacobite army to move very rapidly out of the Highlands.

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And to conquer Scotland in an astonishingly short space of time.

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From a military point of view, they weren't a success.

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We've seen in more recent conflicts how difficult it is

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for a military force to establish control over a wild mountainous area.

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Just as in Afghanistan in current times,

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in the Highlands 200, 300 years ago it was very difficult to do that.

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What changed this area from being that lawless, clan wilderness

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into being more sophisticated?

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It began to change radically in the later part of the 18th century,

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after the last Jacobite rebellion in 1745, 1746

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had been definitively crushed at the Battle of Culloden, about 100 miles east of here.

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The old society then began to fall apart.

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The former clan chiefs gradually evolved into landlords

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that began treating their land as a commercial asset.

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Sheep farming was introduced on a very large scale

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and part of what was associated with that

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was the removal of very large numbers of people who were being evicted

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to make way for the new sheep farms.

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The area was comprehensively depopulated.

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Once the old Highland culture was broken,

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there was little need for the army to remain here and the barracks were abandoned.

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The last people to use them were victims of the Highland Clearances, families seeking shelter

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after being forcibly evicted from their land to make way for sheep.

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Where are we with Highlands right now?

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If your equivalent is standing here in 100 years' time, how will he reflect on this period of history?

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I think it will be seen as a period of remarkable change.

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For many decades, for the better part of 200 years,

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the Highlands were an area where people were leaving,

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either for overseas or to cities in the south.

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But we have seen in the last 20, 30 years a reversal of that pattern.

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I would think and hope that if we were to be able to come here 100 years from now,

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we would see a place that was flourishing.

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The next stage of my journey

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takes me briefly south then east at a fork in the road.

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I'm heading into Glen Beag, a dead-end, which is slightly unusual for Harold.

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But what I find there makes it worth it.

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These amazing structures are known as brochs.

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The word comes from Old Norse and means "a fortification".

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Although in ruins, these erections are the two finest brochs on the mainland of Scotland.

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The lower broch has a wall 11ft thick and 30ft in height

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despite some 7ft in masonry having been taken when the Bernera Barracks were built.

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Hundreds of these dry stone towers were constructed during the Iron Age,

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but the people who built them and why they built them are shrouded in mystery.

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Playwright and local broch enthusiast Eddie Stiven tells me more.

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This is some structure!

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Who built it? What was it used for?

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They were built about 2,000 years ago, which would tend to mean it they were built

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by the people who were here before the Scots got here,

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who people generally refer to,

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and certainly the Romans referred to them, as the Picts.

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The painted people.

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They were partly Celtic, partly indigenous,

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they are a bit of a mystery.

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It is a bit of a mystery why they built these buildings here.

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I think way you get more information about the people

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at that time is the information in the legendary material that was written and handed on orally.

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A lot of that has been recorded both in Ireland and in the Highlands of Scotland.

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There are two main cycles,

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and they speak about warrior queens in this area.

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There is a cycle which is usually called the Ulster Cycle.

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And in that set of stories, the boy hero of Ulster, who is called Cu Chulainn,

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he came to Skye across the water for his training in arms

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from a wonderfully named warrior queen, Scathach.

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The shadowy one.

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And she taught him what I guess was early Celtic martial-arts training,

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according to the legends.

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And she, in turn, had an enmity with a warrior queen who lived on the mainland and, who knows,

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it may have been here.

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The stories of warrior queens led to much speculation about Pictish society,

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but one thing is clear - they must have been a skilful and determined people

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to build such advanced and puzzling structures.

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These walls are hollow, intramural galleries going all the way up.

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I believe there is an engineering reason for that

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because it keeps the structure lightweight.

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If it were to be built of solid stone, it would collapse under its own weight.

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The hollow walls contain stone staircases, and inside each broch

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there may have been several wooden floors or platforms.

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As you can see, there are ledges, or scarcements, they call them,

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which would have perhaps taken a floor here,

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and right up the top you can see another one, maybe an observation gallery floor

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that you could look over the top from.

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There are several hundred of these brochs scattered across Scotland

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in all sorts of locations, but that variety and number

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simply adds to the mystery of why they were built.

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Do you think this was a defensive structure?

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It may have been, it may have been in defence of attacks

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from other tribes living locally.

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So, there was no major outside threat

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that this society was defending against.

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But the most common theory these days is they were built for status.

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You know, "This is what I can build, this is my house," and show off a bit.

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When you consider that in the rest of the British Isles at that time

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outside of the classical buildings built by the Romans,

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everybody else was living in fairly simple rude huts,

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this is a pretty impressive structure for its age.

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Strongholds, dwellings, status symbols or simply shelter from the harsh winter weather,

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whatever these brochs were used for, the people who built them must have been a force to be reckoned with.

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No wonder the Romans didn't make it this far north.

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Though, if they had, their road-building skills would have been welcome.

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Because of the remoteness of the North West Highlands,

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it is as well to go prepared for mechanical and tyre trouble.

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A few spare spokes, plenty of repair material

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for covers and tubes, even spare cotters and brake blocks, are all advisable.

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It says much for the reliability of the modern lightweight bicycle

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that it stands up to the rough hammering of Highland roads.

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Harold mentions in his book that there are no smooth roads round here at all.

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He would love this.

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Cyclists' paradise, brand new tarmac.

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Retracing my tracks west down Glen Beag,

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I turn left again at the coast, heading southwards.

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Then it's on to high ground on the headland of Sandaig

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as the road sweeps past the edge of the cliffs

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to reveal some breathtaking views across the Sound of Sleat.

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The road is rough and in all the nine miles there are only two farms,

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the roadmender's house at Shantaig and the shoreside farm of Rarsaidh.

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What Harold would not have known about, because it was hidden from view,

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was a cottage down on the bay that would soon become one of the most famous places

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in this part of Scotland thanks to the arrival of two outsiders,

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the naturalist Gavin Maxwell and his otter who he brought from Iraq.

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Maxwell was the author of the highly influential book Ring of Bright Water,

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which made him and his otters unforgettable.

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Gavin Maxwell was a remarkable figure - one-time explorer, special agent and even shark hunter!

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He moved here to a house that was known in his books as Camusfearna.

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And helping to care for the otters that were his passion was a young Londoner

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who would later become a famous naturalist and television presenter.

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To hear more about their extraordinary lives here, I'm meeting up with Terry Nutkins,

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who's agreed to show me where he and Gavin Maxwell and Edal the otter once lived.

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-Right, Clare. So, here is your first view of Camusfearna.

-And that is where the house was, down there.

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Just to the right of that telegraph pole is where we lived and that is where Gavin Maxwell is buried.

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Maxwell chose this place for its remoteness and isolation - even now, it's still a tricky spot to get to.

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Who needs a bridge?!

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This is it.

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This is where the house stood that we lived in at Camusfearna.

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Of course, Gavin Maxwell, Gavin Maxwell's ashes are below this stone.

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This is where the house stood.

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Now, the stone's in this position quite literally because Gavin Maxwell's desk was here.

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And this is where he sat and wrote Ring of Bright Water and the trilogy and the life of the otters.

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Absolutely. On this very spot.

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It was a masterpiece. It was beautifully written.

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Um... It inspired people,

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especially people that lived in places like London and Manchester, to come and see wildlife.

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And it was all there.

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It's on our doorstep, really. It is only Scotland.

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It was quite an adventure for a young boy who was born

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in the middle of London, in Marylebone, overlooking a railway station.

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It was quite incredible to come from that concrete jungle into this wilderness.

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He may have left behind the noise, the people and the pollution, but also gone were the comforts of life.

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We didn't have electricity, we didn't have running water, as such.

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We had paraffin lamps and Tilley lamps, and that is how we lived.

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It was a very different lifestyle. I loved it.

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But, as Terry found out, adventure and danger go hand in hand.

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Edal, the otter, bit these two fingers off.

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She attacked me and it took me quite a while to get away from her,

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but when I did get away from her, I found my hands were like mincemeat,

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they had been torn to shreds.

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Did that change your relationship with otters?

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You don't keep an otter as a household pet.

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That is one thing Gavin learned and we all learnt - they are not domestic dogs or domestic animals.

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And they are unpredictable, being wild animals.

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Maxwell's remote existence with the otters had captured the public imagination,

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but the popularity of the book shattered the dream.

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Maxwell was suddenly famous, and even this place offered no escape.

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He couldn't cope with it. He was not a strong man that way.

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So, he could not deal with it, but he did not want anyone to know that. So he started drinking more.

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He started smoking more.

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And the pressures became more because we started spending more money.

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And next thing, agent on the phone - "You have to write a sequel. We're broke."

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So, he wrote The Rocks Remain, the sequel to Ring of Bright Water, which was a disaster

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because it was written in a hurry.

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And it didn't have the same beauty,

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the same anything, as Ring of Bright Water.

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But that was the beginning of the end, really.

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One night in 1968, Camusfearna burned to the ground.

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Maxwell escaped, but Edal the otter died in the fire.

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It was all very sad and Gavin... was devastated by it.

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Because this is the place he loved, this was his Ring of Bright Water.

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This was his haven.

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Harold's route has taken me to the edge of the mainland,

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the gateway to Skye along the military road that brought troops both in and out,

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past the mysterious ruined brochs and down to the remote place

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where one writer brought millions of people closer to nature

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and encouraged them to experience the great outdoors.

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Harold would have approved.

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We have seen throughout this journey how outsiders have come in,

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and whether it's 18th century invaders or Sitka spruces,

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they found it hard to leave and they've changed the look of the landscape,

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but they haven't changed its essential soul, its nature.

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This is still a wild and remote part of Scotland.

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Thoroughly worth the effort of getting here, hard to get to - and pretty hard to leave as well.

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Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:28:390:28:42

E-mail [email protected]

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