Episode 5 Monty Halls' Great Hebridean Escape

Imagine walking away from your normal life

to live on a beautiful island packed with spectacular wildlife.

Whoa!

Well, that's what I'm doing,

working as a volunteer nature ranger in the Outer Hebrides.

Welcome to my Great Escape.

Come on Reubs, come on.

It's four months since I arrived in the Outer Hebrides.

270? Yeah. Going once.

I've hosted a fund-raising dinner to get some working capital.

There we are, that's the first cheque.

'And now I'm ready to start spending.

'The first priority is way-marking the new nature trails.'

All right Reubs, I'd move if I were you.

'Including the escape route taken by Bonnie Prince Charlie.'

Now I need to just go and pepper the landscape with posts, like a man possessed!

Ow! BLEEP!

'Along the way I discover the secret of surviving in the Outer Hebrides.'

A big factor in people living here for all these

thousands of years has been the community, it's still the case today. Everyone has to muck in.

And as winter hits the islands, I'm left stranded.

-What's going on?

-My car's broken down.

I had a sudden burst of enthusiasm-stroke-mild panic.

It's a bit like studying for an exam and then suddenly realising the exam

is two days away and you haven't done enough.

So I've been doing the trails, there we are, and just figuring out

exactly where they're going to be, and just an awesome amount of work to do.

These nature trails are a really important way of opening up the islands to tourists.

My job as ranger is to write a guide booklet for each one and to make sure they're easy to follow.

'One of the great historic trails on these islands is the Bonnie Prince Charlie trail.'

Come on, Reubs.

Suppose it may be myth, may be legend, it may be history, no-one really knows, but it's the route

that Bonnie Prince Charlie followed over these islands kind of when he

was in exile, when he was running away, and a group of local people have got in touch with the forum

to say it would be really great to actually follow that route and turn it into a bit of a feature

of the islands, and I thought a really nice way to do it would be on horseback.

Is that easier?

-Perfect.

-It's the biggest size you can get.

-Really?

-Yeah.

It's a while since I've ridden so stable hand Danielle McGillivray has selected a horse who sounds perfect.

And the horse you've got for me is...? Is Webster.

He's an old gentleman. The army gave him to us.

Doesn't like drums and pipe bands so he didn't quite pass.

Rather ambitiously, I've ticked cantering as my level of ability.

'Danielle's clearly heard it all before and insists on an assessment of my true abilities.'

I should be all right with him.

-So how long have you been doing this?

-Eh, 16 years.

-Wow.

Since I was three.

It's a great sight, these big horses, and many years ago I got really interested in kind of

medieval history, and these were the horses the guys used to ride into battle in.

These sort of crosses between the shires and those great big legs and great stout thighs.

The animal that built an empire, that is. Come on then, Webster.

-Walk on. There we go.

-Oh, perfect.

-Are you OK?

-Yeah.

-This is my kind of pace on a horse.

Reubs seems completely unfazed, doesn't he?

-Good lad.

-I assume, Danielle, you're going to lead me

right round the Bonnie Prince Charlie trail. I think that would be a...

-Lead you? No.

-Come on.

-Try not to tip forward because Webster's got that naughty habit

-of dropping his shoulder, then you're down. Off we go.

-Come on, then.

-Come on, mister.

-Shorten up your reins a wee bit.

That's the first stage and use your legs to squeeze

and using your voice with a raised voice, "Trot on, Webby!"

-Trot on, Webby, come on, Webby come on.

-Trot on, shoulders back.

Looks very good, see the bounce, well done.

Very good, Webster, very good.

Watch...Reubs.

Shoulders back.

'I hardly think I've passed the test with flying colours.'

Ah, that was close.

'But we're off on the trail anyway.'

Go on, Webster, go on.

Bonnie Prince Charlie spent the summer of 1746 on Benbecula

hiding from the English army after his crushing defeat at Culloden,

and eventually escaped over the sea to Skye, disguised as a woman.

Bit of off-roading.

There was a £30,000 price on his head, which is the equivalent of £4.5 million in modern money.

So this guy was Public Enemy Number One.

If Bonnie Prince Charlie had been on you, Webster, he would have been caught.

Come on Webster, good lad, come on.

Webster, come on, it's the camera crew, Webster.

Come on Webster, come on.

You can see from this countryside how easy it would be to hide someone here, and this area was saturated

with Redcoats from the Hanoverian army, and he moved through this countryside with two people.

There was a local lady called Flora MacDonald, there was a local man called Neil MacEachen,

they were loyal Jacobites, the Hanoverian army was hot on his heels and they spirited him away to

the coast and from there he caught a boat to Skye, and this is thought to be the exact route that he followed.

It's a lovely walk, obviously, and that's all Webster's done, is walk and stand still.

Webster, that way, come on, come on, Webster, good lad.

Come on, come on, come on, Webster.

Webster, it's another horse. You can't be scared of another horse, that's ridiculous.

Come on. Tide'll be in by the time we get there.

Come on, Webster, come on.

-Good lad, good lad, come on, come on, come on.

-Keep kicking.

That's it and once he's walking, keep going even though he's kept walking,

keep it, that's it, keep after him.

Come on, Webster, come on, good lad good lad, come on come on, come on.

The next part of the trail isn't strictly where Bonnie Prince Charlie went

but there's some sand flats down here

that make for fantastic riding apparently so we're going to have a little go at that.

What we've got to do now is actually step off the horse and do

the rest of the journey on foot because it's over there, there's no sort of tracks any more.

Over there is the actual spot where Bonnie Prince Charlie

was supposed to have got on the boat to Skye.

So stable manager Sue MacDonald has sent the horses back

and a boat is going to pick us up at the very place he left.

So this is one of the places, Monty, that Bonnie Prince Charlie allegedly threw his gold in.

Should have brought my Speedos!

Yeah, and you can just imagine here I mean do you think this could have been the very point?

This looks very... I love the trees, you know, it looks kind of a bit gnarly, a bit...

it looks the sort of place where gold should be hidden, doesn't it, really.

-This is DJ, Sue's husband.

-Hiya.

The man is going to help us make good our escape.

-You're here to rescue us.

-Ah, well...

So this was the ruin where he's supposed to have spent the night?

That's right, well, a few nights, actually, more than one.

So this would have been an old black house or...

It would have been a turf house, it's a sheiling really.

There's no signs of any rocks left so it was obviously completely made of turf.

It's very big, that's what we wondered why it's such a big area

for a very ancient house, it must have been pretty large.

A house fit for a prince.

They lived quite a grand life...

It's surprisingly moving to be in the exact place

immortalised in the famous song -

# Speed, bonnie boat like a bird on the wing

# Over the sea to Skye... #

'Well, this is it, journey's end.

'All this happened in 1745 and a whole new era of Scottish history started.

'This was the final leg of his journey'

of a guy who'd got his armies to within a 120 miles of London,

and he left here a broken man and he left behind him a legacy which meant

that the clans were rent asunder,

traditional Highland life ceased to exist,

it was almost ethnic cleansing that he was leaving behind him...

So...heavens only knows what was going through his head as he moved out of this inlet.

I'm just writing up the thing for the Bonnie Prince Charlie trail.

It's a very famous piece of Scottish history and I find it extraordinary

that it's not marked up, you know, it's not on maps, it's not a

significant part of the islands, you know for anyone to come and visit,

to do the Bonnie Prince Charlie trail.

I particularly enjoyed it with the horses, of course I'm no horseman, and I was pretty nervous

about the old cantering and galloping bit across the mud flats.

They say, don't they, that one of the things you should do before you die

is gallop a horse along a seashore

and I thought I could do them both together.

I thought I could you know gallop a horse along the seashore and then die,

but I just didn't do the last bit.

I just did the galloping bit. Fantastic, you know really life affirming, great feeling.

Come on, Reubs.

We're doing a barbecue for Fergus' kids.

Cook 'em a few burgers and poison them.

That's good, that's kind of going, I've only got seven firelighters in there.

Fergus is the Laird of North Uist and he's been a huge help to me, and a really good mate,

so a Halloween barbecue for George, Rosie, Violet, and their childminder, Shona,

is the least I can do in return.

Well, I think this is going to take about...

sort of four or five days to cook your burgers.

Well, we've brought a kite down, haven't we?

Oh, I've got... you know it's Halloween?

I've got some horror teeth. Who wants that mask?

Now that is scary! That is hideous, which, George, sadly leaves you with a wig.

Days like today, you know... it's not easy living up here sometimes, you get rotten days and you know,

short days, especially in the winter, but every now and then you get a day like today

where the kids come down the beach and I think things like this, you remember forever, don't you,

a day that's stolen from the summer and barbecuing and playing with the dogs, and perfect weather.

That's Smokey and that's Streaky - you can tell by the ears.

-Reuben's very jealous, isn't he?

-FRANTIC BARKING

Reuben gets jealous, he gets very jealous.

Here we go.

It's amazing how much the pigs have grown,

you know I'm going to have to come over there with piglets and,

and they're amazing animals, you know, they're great company.

The old pig is, he's very bright and they've got a lot of character to them and, of course the idea at

Christmas is that I'm going to slaughter 'em... (going to slaughter 'em,)

and you know make them into sausages and save the money for the ranger,

for the ranger position, and that's going to be a tricky one, let me tell you,

cos you know we've bonded, me and the pigs.

Still there we are, we'll see, cross that bridge when we come to it.

Come on, Reubs, this way, this way, this way, go on, good lad.

It's a nice feeling this morning, because I'm heading to Barra,

which is always nice cos it's a great island,

and I'm doing some good solid ranger work there,

exploring a project about the effects of erosion on the islands.

Smell any dolphins?

This is the southernmost tip of the southernmost island that's occupied in the Western Isles.

This is the island of Vatersay and beyond here you're starting

to get to uninhabited islands that have been given over to the birds and the beasts and the wilderness.

You're never too far from wilderness here, but out that way is the real deal.

Come on then, come on.

You've got these lovely white dunes at the top of these beaches

leading, of course, to a hugely significant environment

which is the machair, which is pretty much unique here in the Outer Hebrides,

and machair is essentially grass that grows in sandy soils,

and the locals have learnt to farm it, so they grow crops and they graze animals on it.

But of course this is facing straight down the barrel of these

huge winter storms that come along and erosion is a massive factor.

But there's some local people doing something very positive about it

and recycling in the truest sense of the word.

Come on, Reubs, come on.

Hi, Rod.

How's it going?

'Roddy MacLeod left the islands when he was 16 to join the Merchant Navy.

'He returned to Vatersay, the home of his wife and grandparents, in 2002.'

So we'll get these in the van and...

-Right, let me give you a hand, by the way.

-Oh, it's no problem.

'He's been working on an innovative anti-erosion project for the last four years.'

Good to see you make the same noise bending down as I do!

-That'll do.

-Perfect.

-OK right.

-OK. We'll head over.

-Yeah, shall I hop in?

-Yeah.

-Right Reubs, in.

Oh, as I said it's luxury. My Land Rover's being devoured from the inside by the dog

and destroyed from the outside by the Uists.

It was thought a little while back that the obvious solution to the erosion of the dunes was just

dumping soil on top and this is an attempt to do that,

but when you dump the soil, you dump all the seeds and everything that's contained in the soil,

and you can see what's happened here is basically all the plants have grown up, these are not

plants from dunes and from machair, they're from soil much further inland, so it just wasn't practical.

It in terms of retaining the environment the way it is, this was not a solution.

The nets ARE a solution.

Overgrazing has killed the vegetation that binds

the dunes together, leaving the sand exposed to the winds and the waves.

And what's the problem with the sand blowing away?

Well, the problem is that there's a possibility if the dunes go,

then the sea'll start to come in onto the machair which then blocks us off.

-Right.

-There's the village.

That's away to the, the main island, Barra, so we're going to be left with...

So this is your natural defence against the sea, isn't it?

I'll put that down there and I'll go and get the others.

I'm sure when I throw it down, Reubs will probably bring it back.

It'll be a recurring problem all day.

-Maybe not, oh, no he's... Obviously a bit too heavy for him.

-Even for him.

'The sand-blow fences are designed to trap the shifting sand and slowly restore the dunes.'

At last, a use for the dog.

You, you can see exactly what Roddy's trying to do here because

this used to be all this level and now the sea's carving a channel and unnatural erosion is taking place

because there's been a certain amount of grazing taken place here.

So all, essentially the idea here is to, to give Mother Nature a bit of a hand and give something

for the sand to get, to hold of basically to pile up against, and then the marram grass takes hold

and this starts acting as a natural defence against the sea, between the sea and the land.

This is a salmon net from a fish farm.

Out of the way, Bruno.

And this is one of the nets that goes round the side.

Now the problem the salmon farmers have is when these nets get, you know, a bit old and a bit tired

and full of holes, salmon escape, so they have to change them.

Normally the nets are just dumped, so this is just a perfect way to recycle these nets.

There's the hammer. Do you want me to go and get some rocks?

-Yeah, please, yeah.

-Yeah, no problem.

If ever you wanted a representation of the power of the sea here, just look at that,

you know, pounding away on this beach.

This was the scene of a terrible, terrible tragedy, 150 years ago.

Basically there was a boat going from Liverpool to Canada and it sank, it foundered here,

and it was full of people, full of passengers and 350 people drowned, men, women, children, all ages.

You know what a sight that must have been and in a way,

the people of the Outer Hebrides fight a constant battle with the sea.

They use it to obviously earn their living, but there's huge respect for it here and it's

constantly assaulting the land they live on and programmes like this try to keep it at bay, really.

As you see where I'm standing here, I've got to walk uphill with this big pile of rocks to get to Roddy,

but that's a very good thing cos this whole channel was the level I'm standing at at the moment

and the sea was gradually winning the battle.

So you can see the effect these nets have had already and that's just in a couple of years.

-There we go.

-Take the end...

Right, and then just roll it over, yeah?

These islands are a last refuge for some of Britain's rarest birds.

But in recent years they've come under attack from the most unlikely of predators.

Several years ago, someone on the island introduced a hedgehog to his garden.

He brought it over from the mainland to eat the slugs in the garden.

From that point on, predictably, things very quickly got out of hand and the numbers spiralled...

presumably there must have been two hedgehogs for the numbers to spiral, now I come to think of it,

and hedgehogs look pretty cute but actually they're voracious predators and scavengers, very opportunistic,

and there's a hedgehog-trapping programme taking place in Benbecula.

In, in, in, in, in, come on.

Doug Bartholomew is employed by Scottish Natural Heritage,

the official conservation agency to run the hedgehog project.

You go out in all weathers, don't you?

Pretty much. We've got, like, a threshold that we don't go out in but it's not like that yet.

-So this is presumably under that threshold.

-Yeah.

-That makes me very sad that we've got to go out in this today but...

-You get used to it.

I'm sure! 'His job is to capture the hedgehogs so they can be repatriated to the mainland.'

So how many traps do you have out?

Here is a map of Benbecula and it shows the whole trap distribution over the island.

-So, a lot.

-So it's, yeah, it's a great many, yeah.

OK, so today, where are we going on here, today, do you know?

-We're going to do this loop here.

-Right, OK.

You must walk a lot of miles. You must be...

Yeah, we walk... like field workers' routes, they're about 20K.

-Right - good grief.

-So walk about 20 kilometres.

-So 20K a day?

-Yeah, we work six-day weeks most weeks, as well.

And this is one of the traps.

Beautifully camouflaged. Is that costhe hedgehog is a perceptive animal that can spot a trap, or...?

Yeah, well, basically you want to get it

as natural as possible so you can see we've got it along the fence line.

What happens is the hedgehog will walk in, you see we bait it with mackerel,

that's just cos it's readily available and also quite smelly so air,

you stand on the treadle plate the door will close behind it and it's trapped.

So there's nothing in that one, obviously.

No there's nothing, you just check the bait and we usually see

from a distance cos the door will be closed.

The hedgehogs used to be killed, didn't they?

Yeah, at the beginning of the project that was thought to be the most humane way,

but things have moved on and there was quite a public outcry, so...

-Right. Oh, my knees.

-Getting old.

I am getting old, unequivocally.

Not that you'd know anything about creaky joints yet.

-No, not yet.

-So you rely on the support of the local population and the public here, don't you?

-Yeah definitely, definitely.

-Yeah. So if someone sights a hedgehog do they give you a call?

Yeah, we've got a hedgehog hotline so...

It's important work, this. You shouldn't underestimate it because the one thing Uists are...

absolutely world renowned... well, for many things but one of them is the wading bird population isn't it?

-Definitely.

-And these transient species coming through and migratory birds and stuff.

Yeah, it's sort of one of the first stop-off points

for migratory birds as well so...

The problem isn't that hedgehogs attack the birds, it's that they

eat their eggs, which has had a dramatic impact on bird numbers.

There it is.

It is actually closed. Do you want to have a look inside?

Yeah, definitely.

There is actually a hedgehog in.

There's a hedgehog in there, look at that, fantastic.

So that's one of this year's young.

Yeah. That's the unlikely source

of a serious conservation issue here,

tiny little hedgehog.

These introduced species can have just a catastrophic impact on quite a delicate environment.

Well, I'm just going to get the hedgehog out of the trap,

just putting on gloves, it's a bit prickly,

and I'll put it in the case and, well...

There we are, and there's that sort of instant defence, rolling into a ball.

-Makes my job easier.

-Yeah. And you say these guys don't have fleas?

No, they don't, well, the ones on the mainland, they have a really big problem with fleas

but the people that brought them across - well, started the problem, they de-fleaed them.

You can see why this animal's been so successful in a way.

It's quite a unique creature, really.

Yeah, completely unique and you know this perfect defence

but he doesn't belong here, does he? He needs to be - he's going to rack up the air miles.

Yeah, off to a new home. So yeah, just going to make some space.

Well done, mate, you're as good as your word. You said the last one would have one in.

Well, fantastic, we return triumphant.

Yeah, well, much to my surprise.

Yeah, well done, well done, brilliant.

You've made my day, I'm quite, I'm genuinely chuffed.

Yeah.

Every evening, the day's haul of hedgehogs are delivered to a holding centre run by Pat and John Holtham.

-Hello, Pat.

-Hello.

-Hello, I'm Monty.

They first visited the islands when the hedgehogs were still

being killed and they spent their whole holiday trying to rescue as many hedgehogs as they could find.

Now they're permanent residents.

Yes, you have a bit of a thing for hedgehogs.

I am absolutely besotted with hedgehogs, yes. I love them.

You do, don't you? I can tell, I can tell. Do you have a particular favourite?

I've got two favourites at the moment, a very tiny one that was found in Lochboisdale...

I think you know where this conversation's going, Pat.

-Can you see him.

-Yeah, would that be all right?

Ah, look at that, tiny little thing.

And she has her own hat, tiny little girl, but she's very used to being handled, very sweet little thing.

Look at that, that's fantastic.

-Do you mind if I...

-No, you can certainly hold her.

A beautiful appealing little animal but doesn't belong on these islands. Very destructive presence...

There we are, there we go.

'When John's got a car load of hedgehogs he takes them to the

'Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue Trust, near Glasgow, where they're tagged and released back into the wild.'

-And John takes them to Hessilhead.

-Right.

-Lochboisdale to Oban.

-Right.

The little one will not go out until the spring because it's not big enough

and it hasn't got time to get big enough before the bad weather comes.

-Yeah, it's fantastic, I can see why you get excited about hedgehogs.

-Tell me about it.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-That was very very interesting,

and it's good to know they're in safe hands.

The days are starting to shorten now, you can hear that wind outside,

that's a cold wind, and the cottage, I've made the cottage kind of warm and fuggy, always got a fire going,

and with the days getting shorter and the wind getting colder, you get a bit tireder.

It's weird, it's this kind of hibernating thing going on.

I've been really tired today.

I've heard other people talk about this up here, this kind of

seasonal thing where you just want to hibernate.

I wonder if it's the mammal in you that just wants to go and find

somewhere warm and quiet and dark and go to sleep until it's summer.

So I'm tired, you know, I'm really tired as I wander round.

But ironically, I've got more work to do now than I've had at any point in my time here.

Reubs, you're tired aren't you?

'Yeah, I'm absolutely exhausted. It's the wind and the cold, I think it's a basic mammalian instinct.'

Yeah, I agree with you, that's just what I was saying a moment ago.

So, we're two mammals huddled in our den trying to go to sleep and wake up when summer's here.

As nature ranger, I take my orders from a committee of islanders

who keep an eye on what I'm doing and hold the purse strings.

And there's a short-term cost of things like posts, now a lot of the posts

are completely either not there or they're rotted or, or whatever.

So I've ordered 30 posts from Ewen MacInnes and I'm hoping

that's going to cover pretty much putting any extra posts, I think.

OK, yeah, yeah, I suppose we've sort of picked up,

-the other island trails as we've been talking, yeah...

-And all of that is progressing really nicely.

We've marked the Barra Trail now, myself and Jonathan,

and on Thursday I'm doing the Lochboisdale Trail.

The Benbecula one is obviously the Bonnie Prince Charlie one,

we've pretty much finished the Berneray one now, the Eriskay one hardly needs any work actually.

It's almost done, so yeah, we're in great shape with the trails.

There's another project in the pipeline, next Saturday.

We want to do a beach cleanup. It's not a huge area of beach to clean.

I can do it myself, but it'd be nice to have a few volunteers.

-The weather is 40-knot winds and rain, so...

-Oh, that's a good day.

-That's quite normal then.

-Ideal barbecue weather!

And you'll take delivery of the fence posts?

Tomorrow, picking them up tomorrow.

There we are, that's the first cheque that's been written.

It's taken me months to get that cheque, but we're in business.

Thank you. The days are ridiculously short, it's raining

a lot, I can't believe the amount of work I've got to do but at last I've got the means to do it.

So I'm going to go and buy fence posts and hammer them into the landscape like a man possessed.

This is Ewen MacInnes, local builder's merchant, and...

he has cut a bunch of posts for me that I'm going to use to mark the trails.

So I'm here to pick them up.

This is where the graft begins.

-Is that, is that all of them?

-That's it.

They'll probably just go in the back, actually.

Reubs, come on.

Cor. Weighty.

What you're looking at here is a culmination of committee meetings, the great feast, tramping trails,

here it is made real.

Come on, Reubs, up, up, up, up, up.

Oh, God.

Loading fence posts, dogs.

My car's broken down.

I think it's the old diff-lock's gone.

You hit a critical mass with any plan, don't you?

Suddenly you've got the finance there, going to pick up the posts,

you're all ready to hammer everything in, and then suddenly there was this unholy din from

underneath the chassis and a large fundamental thing came away from another large fundamental thing...

That much I know, and suddenly there was no power and oh, it was like

Beelzebub himself was playing a kettle drum underneath my chassis.

So now the Land Rover's stuck in a lay-by, there's a local garage going to come pick it up,

so I've hired a vehicle, and I don't know what the vehicle is, there's a obviously a fairly limited

range on the island but that's the vehicle that's going to be taking me and my fence posts into the hills.

My dear old Landy.

Probably cos of Reubs, probably chewed through some crucial part of the internal mechanism.

Ah, here we go.

That's my new off-road vehicle.

Right.

Next time me and the Land Rover are reunited I shall be a bit poorer, I expect.

This is the kind of flip side of living and working

in the Outer Hebrides, isn't it?

Anyway, no time to mope. I've got to get on with marking out

the nature trail on Berneray which I surveyed back in the summer.

Probably in about 40- or 50-mile-an- hour winds here. This is the start of the really stormy period,

but obviously I've got to get the posts in - time's running out for me, basically,

but it's kind of nice like this. It does feel like you're in the north Atlantic on a rugged lump of rock.

Come on, dog.

I'm walking across to the dunes, which is the point on the beach

where walkers will leave the beach and come down here to the car park

and obviously it needs to be marked by these posts.

People of the Outer Hebrides

have always had a very intense relationship with the sea.

Wow.

And in 2005 there was a storm that hit the islands that was unprecedented.

10 metres of coastline was lost in some places around the islands.

They'll be here for a year, maybe slightly longer,

and then gradually the land'll be eaten away and someone will have to come and put new ones in.

I remember running along this beach

in a pair of shorts, sweating, on a beautiful summer's day, and I

think one of the things I've really learnt in my time in the islands

is that it's not all about cornflower-blue skies and sunshine, it's about winter storms as well.

It's another face of the islands but it's just as beautiful, I think.

But those icy tendrils of a really freezing winter wind tugging at your clothes

and the crash of the waves.

It's really invigorating stuff.

All right, Reubs, I'd move if I were you.

There we go.

A beacon guiding people

to the Community Hall.

Right. Are you ready, Reubs, come on.

This post ain't no ordinary post.

Very early on in my embryonic ranger career.

I found this post and swore that I'd come back and dig it in.

This wind appears to have blown Reubs' brains out of his ears and he's acting very strangely.

He thinks he's in Alaska, and I'm food! Don't you dare.

We're temperate creatures, you know, us Brits.

I've done a lot of work in the tropics over the course of my life

and I think it's all very nice, sunshine, relentless hot temperatures and things

but there's nothing better, is there, than ending a day like today

and getting back into the cathedral hush

of your car or a pub with a fire cracking away, and warming up again?

It's one of the great feelings, which is exactly what I'm about to go and do.

Come on Reubs, come on.

GUITAR AND FIDDLE PLAY TRADITIONAL MUSIC

That noise you can hear back there is students from

the local music college who just kind of get together of an evening here and just have a bit of a jam.

The music school is based at Lews Castle College on Benbecula.

It's a completely different matter hearing that kind of music at home

you know, on a CD or whatever -

the place to hear that type of music is in a pub

on North Uist as the winds sort of shriek

and howl around the building and the waves crash against the coast

and you're in a storm, a north Atlantic storm in November,

and then when you hear that music, suddenly it'll sound very different.

One sure sign that winter is drawing in is the annual lamb sale at Lochmaddy.

All these sheep have been raised on a hill over the summer, they're being sold today so it's

a big event and they've all been waiting for the ferry to come in with the buyers from the mainland.

There's all the sheep from the islands and then it all just kicks off.

It's a very, very significant event this for the local farmers - this is when

they find out if all the hard work has been worth it over the course of the summer.

-Hello, Donald, how are you. nice to see you, how's things?

-Oh, pretty good.

-Good, good.

-I wish the weather was better.

-Yeah, I know. 'Donald MacLean normally works

'on the Berneray ferry, so it's a surprise to see him here,

'but it's clearly all hands on deck at sale time.'

-There's a lot of animals here.

-Oh, yes, there's probably about 2,500 here today.

2,500?

Yes. A lot of the buyers are from sort of Black Isle area,

but some of them have come up as far as Carlisle.

Yeah, oh, really, wow.

And what would be a good price to get for one of the lambs here?

Just now the, in the last, this year and last year they've gone up a lot yeah,

you're getting you know anything between £30 and £50 for them.

-Right, and per animal?

-Yes, yes.

-Not bad, is it.

-I think they're averaging over 30 - that's good, yeah.

Excellent. It sounds like you should get into it yourself.

-I know, lack of a flock.

-Yeah yeah.

But you know, a few years ago they were struggling to get £10, £8 or £10.

Really, so it's tripled in price, right.

Well, we're keeping you from your work, Donald, I'll go and lean on

that gate and try and say something vaguely interesting. Good to see you.

There's about 40 sheep in here and I'm just listening to the auction going on behind me.

Sheep are going for about 40 quid or so, so £1,600 worth of sheep and if there's 2,400 sheep here,

that £96,000 worth of sheep, so suddenly it's become worth it again.

It's significant, that, cos everyone you see here

has been through some very, very hard times over the last few years.

This, this isn't the place to inadvertently recognise someone across the room and wave at them,

cos if you do that you're suddenly the proud owner of 12 sheep.

£37 and 50, last chance here... 37 pounds and 50!

But then I did recognise somebody, Heather, who sold me my pigs, Smokey and Streaky.

-Just saying that this must have been horrendous when they were going for ten quid.

-£1.

-No!

-50p. Uh-huh.

No.

There were, there were sheep and lambs going for...

My sister sold lambs last year for £5 each.

No, that's shocking, you're just not going to make anything are you?

Nothing at all, you're, well once they take the, once they take the commission off them.

No, so £5, they were going for £5?

Well, you're, I don't know how much they'd be left of the commission, but not, not much.

The whole system is set up so the guy who brings them in there, he counts them in

the pen, that's his job, they're all siphoned off in different ways, everyone's got a subtly different

job cos they've got to get through all the stock today.

This will finish at three o'clock this morning.

Candles and a flickering fire - it's a touchingly romantic scene

but it's actually because all the power's gone down.

The wind's been howling outside

all day, the rain's just been lashing away,

and it went dark and then all the lights went out.

And apparently it's quite a common thing this time of year and it's probably going to last most

of the night, but it's rather nice actually just sitting here, my romantic companion down there,

which you can't see because he's a black dog at night in a dark room.

But the cottage has sort of come into its own actually because the

walls are about, it's an old cottage, the walls are

about four or five feet thick and so the heat generated from the fire has just warmed the place up.

I'm really toasty.

So hopefully tomorrow morning just wait for the dawn light I suppose, get an early night.

I'm just mapping out the walk on North Uist and I'm doing it on the quad,

cos it's mainly on track so I can do it nice and quickly.

So I intend to fly across the landscape like a rutting stag.

Every trail has its own special appeal, but I think this one is my favourite.

This walk's slightly different because obviously you've got

the beach and you've got the flats and the dunes.

It's very beautiful and it's mainly on the beach and the dunes,

but also it's a big archaeology walk.

This headland has got some of the best archaeology in all of the islands, and loads of local people

have said that to me and this route takes in several of the sites.

The problem is it's like having a book that you can't read.

I'm no archaeologist,

but I know, I've got a local contact who is, and I'm going to get her to actually walk me round this headland

before I lay the walk out to make sure we take in the very best of these truly magical

archaeological sites that everyone keeps talking about.

Kirsty MacDonald is a North Uist native

who got interested in archaeology when she was ten years old and found a coin from 810 AD on a local beach.

Nothing like being out in the rain.

No, no, that's it, nice to meet you. How's it going?

This is a, this is a very appropriate setting for you, isn't it?

In the midst of ruins and...and all that.

I love it. And this is actually one of my favourite spots in North Uist.

Yeah. Do you want to gives us the Neolithic estate agent

tour of the place - imagine I'm a prospective buyer.

Iron, Iron Age, sorry.

Wheelhouses like this are unique to the Outer Hebrides and Shetland.

They were built underground with cobblestone domed roofs.

OK, this is the entrance, so you come in here. Yeah? Nice little view out of the door.

If we come round this way, there's

a nice little bit over here.

Quite often the entrance to wheelhouses you get these funny little cells and nobody's quite sure

what they were for, whether they were sort of guard cells

or, I kind of like to think that it was just sort

of a porch where they dumped their things as they came in from the wet and windy day.

I guess you can't really see quite so well, this bit's kind of collapsed a bit.

You can see the, the hearth in the middle where the fire would be,

everybody would have gathered round, the focal point really.

But over here on that side

you can see these spokes coming out

-which is where the...

-As in these distinct...

Yeah, which is where the wheelhouse gets its name from, cos,

obviously, you, you know it's kind of like spokes of a wheel.

Quite often as well you would have sort of stones

coming across the front in sort of a curve which kind of makes it even more of a separation in a way.

-from the main...

-And I suppose these places would have been vital to

communities wouldn't they, a real focal point, strong points...

Absolutely, and I mean that's something I think that has been

a big factor in people living here for all these thousands of years has been the community.

It's still the case today. I mean people are so close-knit in the way that they go about their business.

Everybody helps each other and I think that's basically what

has to happen when you live out in a wild place like this.

Yeah, it's the ultimate sort of egalitarian society.

Absolutely, it's about survival. I mean, everyone has to muck in and, and do whatever they can.

This is a really strange place for me to come across, you know just as

someone visiting the islands, and it seems a really kind of incongruous place to want to be buried.

It's the middle of nowhere, it's a bit kind of rundown and do you know anything about the...

Well, it seems like the middle of nowhere but

if you think about the fact that in the past, people's main mode of transport would have been boats,

you know, the sea?

The sea would have been the road,

then actually it's in quite a central place if you look around you.

This was the burial place for the MacLeans, who were from the island of Boreray, which is just up there

and they had a long-term lease of Boreray. There's lots of various stories attached to that as well.

Right, well a long-term lease there's that sort of...

Well, one of the stories goes that MacDonald of Sleat who owned North Uist

was in danger of losing Boreray to, I think it was the MacLeods,

and this guy MacLean stepped in and came up with some clever plan

and managed to, to save the island of Boreray

and so MacDonald said to him that he could have the lease

of Boreray and he said, in Gaelic, it was something like... SHE SPEAKS GAELIC

which means...

"as long as the black cow gives birth to a calf,

"and as long as the waves hit the shore, you can have Boreray."

Wow, so that's quite a nice sort of leasing contract, isn't it? That means for a fairly long time.

Yeah.

Of course, at a superficial level these walks are great

but it's only when you do a walk like this with a local person

who descends from the people who used to live here,

and especially when there's a bit of archaeological knowledge there as well that you

suddenly feel the echo of people who've gone before you, and you suddenly realise

the significance of the things you're looking at and it just adds that little extra something I think.

It's the day of the big beach cleanup.

Go on then Reubs, off you get.

Horses, dogs, people, beach, litter, perfect.

Joining me again to head up the team representing the stables is manager Sue MacDonald.

Thank you very much for turning out, fantastic.

That's all right, you might not be thanking us in

a couple of hours' time when it goes to complete mayhem.

Really? Oh, don't worry, we've got, we've got Reubs,

-a quad bike, and lots of horses. I can't think of a single thing that could possibly go wrong.

-Well, no.

This is the infantry we've got here, and the cavalry are going to be round the corner in a second.

They're coming in a second wave, but this is the beach cleanup team,

which is a fantastic effort because it's a Baltic day.

It's really cold, but cleaning this beach is very, very important

because of the number of young seals that seem to be coming up here just to rest.

170 different species of marine animals around the world have been found

to have ingested plastic, and it's had a real detrimental effect

on them so cleaning up the plastic here's really, really important.

What we're doing is working from this end up, as it were, but Sue, it's up to you with the horses.

If you wanna get 'em away from the bags and everything, take them a bit further up.

Come on, then.

Are you going to come and help Mummy lift it down, yes? Come on, then.

An Icelandic wind shrieking off the sea.

-How are you getting on?

-It's OK. Does this have to go in the skip?

Really, I think that should go in the skip as well.

It's quite amazing as well when you get down into the weeds,

the sheer range of stuff that is actually washing up here.

How you getting on, chaps?

Fantastic.

We've sent the New Forest pony up the top of the beach out of harm's way.

Brilliant. Well, it's quite amazing.

If you look at this, this is like 20 minutes, half an hour's work, just awful.

This is the scale of this problem.

For every square mile of ocean right the way round the world, and just

think of that, the great open spaces of the Pacific and the Atlantic

and the blue wilderness of these big oceanic basins,

for every square mile of that, there's 46,000 pieces of plastic.

Right, I don't think I need to say anything else cos my spokesman is going to say it.

We've cleaned up all of the beach.

So, there we are, job done, fantastic, fantastic, a transformation.

You know, it took two hours, an absolute transformation,

and it's made such a difference for the young animals coming ashore, and for people just walking their

dogs on the beach and walking their kids on the beach, and look at that pile of rubbish.

£1,000 later, I've got the Land Rover back.

And I've called in help to start work on the Udal peninsular trail.

Hi there, how you doing? I'm Monty.

-Alistair.

-Alistair. Yeah.

'Alistair MacDonald is a local driver and a passionate crofter.'

This is a really important part of the walk, you know, marking this bit here.

'He's also a member of the local township, who are committed

'to preserving this archaeologically rich trail.'

Well, look, I'll let you crack on and presumably you need me to give you a hand to...

We'll probably need a hand once I get a hole dug and we'll see how it goes.

Once we've done this one, we'll go round the rest of the islands

-putting the posts in. All right?!

-Yeah!

The local people in this particular area, in the area of Udal, are really delighted about this

walk, because they've wanted to open this peninsular up to tourists for a long time.

-Do you want that off?

-That's it, Monty, yeah.

We'll slide the chain up that way a bit, give it a wee lift to get us started.

No worries. There we go.

-Can you hold it there, Monty? I'll come out to you?

-OK.

Ah, it's too heavy!

-OK?

-Nearly, yeah. Off we go.

Considering where we are, I'm quite disappointed we didn't

just toss it into the hole from about 30 yards away!

-Caber tossing, yeah?

-Yeah!

If we can move it slightly... There we go.

Perfect.

Of all the walks... I've really enjoyed doing all the walks, but this one's been really

special for me, cos it's the North Uist walk,

and that's the island I've lived on for my whole time here,

and also archaeologically it's a very significant walk,

because this is the history of the people

on the island of North Uist.

I think they feel a strong attachment to this peninsular, their support's been

absolutely tremendous, and there's the living embodiment of it.

-Life's a lot easier when you've got a digger, isn't it?

-It sure is!

-Is it solid?

-Rock-solid, tremendous.

I'll plunge into the hinterland now and hammer in my pathetic little

toothpicks that I'm covering the islands with.

-Well, I'll let you go and get warm.

-OK, then.

-So thanks so much.

-No problem.

-Really appreciate it.

-Good.

-I'm very impressed with your digger driving. You've obviously done that before!

-Once or twice, yes!

-See you later. Cheers.

-Cheers, then.

Out the way, Reubs. Thank you!

-Agh!

-BLEEP!

I've just managed to hit my own foot with the hammer, the sledgehammer,

and you'll be pleased to hear it was a good, enthusiastic, full-bloodied swing of the sledgehammer.

There's a good lump there,

so I'm going to go and dunk it in the sea, the kind of old-style Outer Hebridean first aid.

I was just starting to think how good I was at hammering, as well.

It is absolutely freezing.

You see that over there? That's snow. It's not rain, it's too cold for rain.

All right, Reubs, thank you for your touching concern.

Right, that's it.

It's a choice between a fracture or frostbite, I think!

I've finished hammering in the fenceposts.

There's a couple more still to do, though, and I'll come back with Jimmy and do those.

But, as you can see, I've been defeated by the conditions.

I can't imagine what it'll be like tomorrow morning,

because this has come in in the last few minutes.

It was sunny about ten minutes ago. So, beautiful, winter's here, with a vengeance.

'Next time...'

This is my debut ceilidh lesson, and it ain't going to be pretty.

-Hold that hand out.

-Sorry, always the wrong hand!

-Merry Christmas.

-Merry Christmas.

'..I take part in the local Christmas ritual...'

I think everyone's edging down to the beach for the traditional plunge.

-I'd like to point out that is very cold.

-Well done, mate.

'..and, Jimmy McLetchie and I bang in the final post.'

Good. Thank you so much for coming here.

Thank you for your hospitality, and many cheers.

Slainte mhath.