The Western Way, Part 1 - Mull of Galloway to Islay The Adventure Show

I'm on the very edge of Scotland,

virtually the most southern bit of land in the country.

I'm on the Mull of Galloway.

Now, I have to confess, I don't know this part of the world very well

and I suspect that's the case for most Scots.

And that's why it's known as one of Scotland's best-kept secrets.

I'm here to start a long walk,

a walk that's going to explore the West Coast of Scotland,

visit some of our finest islands

and finish in the West Highland town of Oban.

And I'm going to call it The Western Way.

The total distance is around 250 miles

and what weather to start me on my journey -

bright sun, clear blue skies and perfect visibility.

But there's something I must see before I head off north.

There are very few lighthouses in Scotland

that are actually open to the public.

This one is operated by the Northern Lighthouse Board

and it is open so I'm going to make full use of that.

One, two, three, four, five, six...

15, 16...

55, 56, 57...

HE MUTTERS NUMBERS

115 steps.

It's like climbing a mountain before I even start my walk.

There's still some more to go.

There are few things more romantic than a lighthouse.

These lonely outposts of civilisation

guiding our sailors round the wild and rocky coast.

I just love them. And this is a great one.

It was built in 1830 by the Stevenson family.

That's the family of the great novelist Robert Louis Stevenson.

And it's often been said that the young Stevenson

learnt his descriptive powers of landscape

from coming to these lonely places with his father and grandfather

when they were designing and building lighthouses like this one.

And when you start a long walk,

it's good to start from somewhere prominent

and you can't get much more prominent than a lighthouse.

Wow!

You know, I always think of lighthouses as things

that tower up from the landscape but a few of them

actually have basements that go down into the land itself.

And it's been suggested that this would make a fantastic bar.

I've got to agree.

A pint of Guinness, please. Yeah, that would work.

I wish I could say I've just walked 20 miles

and have stopped for a well-deserved break but that's not strictly true.

I've come about 200 metres,

but there's no way I could pass a cafe like this one

and I have gone for the healthy option.

Well, almost.

You need to be well stocked up for a long journey,

or at least that's always been my excuse.

And what a journey it's going to be.

From here, our new Western Way follows the Rhins of Galloway

and heads up the coast of Ayrshire to Ardrossan.

After a short ferry journey, I'll walk through Arran,

taking in its highest peak Goat Fell en route

and there's no apology for our diversion

to two very different islands - Islay and Jura.

Looking further ahead, I'll be travelling up

somewhere that walkers should explore more - the Cowal Peninsula

and after that, I'm on familiar ground, the West Highland Way

and the rugged Black Mount hills

surrounding Glen Kinglass

before the final stretch into Oban.

The Rhins of Galloway run between the Mull of Galloway

and the town of Stranraer

and within the folds of what is a low-lying and cliff-girt landscape

lies a folklore as rich as any.

It's a folklore that comes from

what was once a very harsh, uncompromising landscape

where survival was a constant struggle

against the harsh land and hungry seas.

A long time ago,

sailors away out here in Luce Bay were in the habit of throwing

titbits of food overboard to appease the fairy folk

to ensure safe passage.

One day, one of the sailors decided he was going to play his bagpipes

and walk into the cave where the fairies reputedly lived.

He thought he could walk right under this peninsula

and come out in Clanyard Bay on the west side.

He duly set forth playing his bagpipes

with his dog following and the other sailors saw him enter the cave

and the music get quieter and quieter as he went further in.

They rushed across the peninsula to see him arrive at the other side,

but he never did.

Some time later, the dog turned up, completely hairless,

whining in terror but the piper was never seen again

and today, it's said that if you wander quietly over the Rhins

on a still summer's evening, if you listen carefully,

you might just hear the sound of bagpipes deep below you underground.

BAGPIPES SOUND FAINTLY

I can't believe what a fantastic landscape this is,

and what's prevented me coming here before?

There's few people who know this area better

than naturalist and writer Keith Kirk

who was born and bred locally.

I left school at the ripe old age of 14.

I was allowed to leave because I was 15 during the summer holidays

and from then on, I spent a lot of time with people

out and about in the countryside that knew about the countryside

and you just learn from them.

You can read as many books as you want,

but really, you've got to get the hands-on experience

and there's a lot of good outdoor people,

whether they're naturalists, gamekeepers, fishermen,

you can learn a lot from them

and that's the way I did it through the whole of my life.

Still doing it to this day.

Them days, you said to your mother, "I'm away,"

and she'd say, "When are you coming back?" and I was on the edge of town

so we just spent days, weekends out in the countryside

whether it would be fishing, bird nesting, climbing trees.

No computers in them days.

Was there a defining moment when you thought,

-"This is what I want to do for the rest of my life"?

-Possibly.

If you go back to probably my first interview

just before I left school and the job I described to them

was probably what I'm doing now,

which I'm told at that point in about 1970 was not around.

Keith has been a countryside ranger for Dumfries and Galloway Council

for the last 26 years.

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone more passionate

about his home patch.

I personally believe that we can probably double the number of people

and walkers coming into Dumfries and Galloway

and you wouldn't, as a walker, really notice any difference

because we have just got so much open area

that people would just disappear into.

But you've got no Munros down here.

No Munros but that has its good points and its bad points.

It means we don't get the Munro baggers

but we have the Galloway Hills and they are spectacular.

What you do for a living,

you could probably have gone and worked anywhere in Scotland.

Why have you stayed here?

I've been away just on holiday

and I've looked at other places but by guns, it's good to be back.

It's a spectacular place. I've got everything.

From where I live in Castle Douglas,

20 minutes I can be on the sea,

I can be in probably our highest hills that we've got

and I can be in forests, I can be on the coast, anywhere you want.

It's just...access is so easy.

We're here below a very impressive-looking castle.

Yeah, Dunskey Castle behind us. It's a spectacular sight.

It's been in ruin, I believe, from the late 1600s.

Some information will say it's 12th-century.

Some people say it's 14th.

I believe what you see now is 16th-century,

but there would probably have been something on the site prior to that.

It's an area that a lot of people would refer to

as Scotland's best-kept secret.

Is there much truth in that?

That is one thing that has or has been said. This best-kept secret.

Well, we don't really want it to be a secret.

It's a beautiful area, beautiful and tranquil.

I've taken a wee diversion from the coastline

and I've come inland to the Galloway Forest Park

and I've come here to climb what is the highest hill in

the Southern Uplands, the highest hill in Galloway.

It's called the Merrick and as a hillwalker like me,

it seems a bit churlish not to come into this area

and not climb the highest hill.

700 years ago, this whole area was a refuge for fugitives,

those outlaws who defied the power structures of the time.

Probably the most famous of those outlaws

were Sir William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.

Indeed, the Bruce knew this area well.

He was born at Turnberry just up the Ayrshire coast

and probably spent a lot of time hunting here.

And he put that local knowledge to good use

in the first battle of his independence campaign,

the Battle of Glen Trool.

Now, it's said that it wasn't a battle as such,

it was a fairly insignificant skirmish but in propaganda terms,

it was very, very important.

It was important in the recruitment

of a lot of the local lairds and local men

to form his independence army,

which eventually went to win the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

I often think these Galloway Hills have an otherworldly feel to them.

The tops of the hills themselves appear as islands

above great swathes of forestry

but it's the place names that are really curious,

names like the Wool Slock, the Nieve of the Spit,

the Murder Hole, the Lump of the Eglan.

There's a Tolkien-esque mindset at work here.

I can't think of anywhere else in Scotland

with such a curious set of place names.

And the name the Merrick means 'the crooked finger'

or 'the branch finger'

and that's the branch finger of this whole range,

the Range of the Awful Hand.

It's a lovely dramatic name for quite a dramatic mountain range.

It's very easy to underestimate these hills.

From what was a nice warm and sunny day down below,

I'm now struggling against gale-force winds.

The Merrick is one of the most popular,

if not THE most popular hill in the Southern Uplands,

but it's not always been the case.

Back in Robert the Bruce's time in the 14th century,

these hills were isolated and remote

and on a blustery day like today, that still feels the case.

Well, I have to say, that was wild.

That was a really tough climb but not because of the climb itself

but because of the fight into this gale-force wind.

But I'm glad now to be at the summit of the Merrick at 814 metres.

Yay!

On a good day, it's said you can see the Lake District in the south,

the Crianlarich Hills in the north

and even the Mountains of Mourne in the west

but I can't really see too much in the distance today

cos it's quite hazy but it is very, very windy

and tomorrow, I'm quite looking forward to getting back on the

coastline and get a bit of a respite from the wind.

Now I'm making my way north along the eastern side of Loch Ryan.

This small area between Stranraer and Cairnryan

has a rich vein of history and it's not too surprising

because Cairnryan is the start of the shortest sea crossing

to Ireland and has been a port since Roman times.

You know, it's absolutely amazing the difference

that 70-odd years can make.

I'm sitting here in a lovely, peaceful tranquil spot

but during the dark days of the Second World War,

this was an enormous, a massive railway siding

capable of taking up to 2,000 wagons.

It was part of the Cairnryan Military Railway.

At that time, there were great fears that our major ports

like Greenock and Liverpool would be so heavily bombed

they'd become unusable

so two temporary harbours were set up here in Scotland -

one at Faslane and this one here at Cairnryan.

Thousands of troops were stationed here and the military railway

carried the troops and supplies between Stranraer and Cairnryan.

Today, that military railway is part of the Loch Ryan coastal path.

At the end of the war, the entire North Atlantic U-boat fleet

sailed into Loch Ryan here and surrendered.

86 German submarines. What a sight that must have been.

Further north, my route takes me a couple of miles inland

and on to higher ground before it drops down again to the coast.

This is a landscape full of history,

one where there is evidence of man's activity

going back down through the centuries.

I've just passed a really interesting little church.

It was built in 1850 as a chapel of ease,

a kind of convenience church for the local people here

who found the distances to the official parish churches

just too much, just too vast.

A number of them were built in the 19th century

and this one behind me is one of the smallest churches in Scotland.

It seats about 70 people.

Here's a nice wee reminder to keep Scotland tidy

and in the local tongue.

"Be ye Man - or Bairn - or Wumman,

"Be ye gaun - or be ye comin,

"For Scotland's Pride - no Scotland's shame

"Gather yer litter - an tak it Hame!"

Travellers on the A77 going down to the ferry ports at Cairnryan

may be surprised to learn that there is a fantastic footpath

that follows the coastline much more directly.

I've climbed up here on that footpath and I have to say,

the feeling of spaciousness is absolutely sensational.

You can see behind me out across the mouth of Loch Ryan

out into the Irish Sea

and away north to the seas and my route ahead.

It's great to be up here, even on such a windy day as this.

I'm really impressed at the variety of this section of Ayrshire coast.

From high moorlands, I've dropped right down

to this rough and rocky coastline here at the port.

Now, there's been a long tradition of smuggling

on this section of the coast,

but there aren't all that many inlets or bays

where the smugglers could sail out from.

I'm just wondering whether this bay here was used by smugglers.

And in fact, there's a dead giveaway

because the wee river that flows out into the bay

is called Shallow Wreck Burn.

I've never been one to slavishly follow a straight line in my walks,

and The Western Way is going to be no exception.

This high land lying just off the coast of Southern Ayrshire

is somewhere I've always wanted to visit.

Like many of my generation of Glaswegians,

I spent a lot of time as a youngster on the Clyde coast.

My parents had a holiday caravan in Saltcoats

and we spent all our holidays and all our weekends

here on the Costa Clyde.

I can remember gazing out over the waters of the Firth of Clyde

at the mountains of Arran

and slightly further south to this big pudding shape

of the Ailsa Craig.

Except I didn't know it as the Ailsa Craig until I was an adult.

My father told me it was called Paddy's Milestone

and that gave it a sense of romance, a notion of foreignness.

Very exciting.

I've been joined by Crystal Maw who is one of the RSPB wardens

responsible for looking after Ailsa Craig.

This island supports over 70,000 breeding sea birds

and is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest,

yet there is more to Ailsa Craig than just its wildlife.

From the middle of the 19th century,

the island was quarried for a rare type of granite known as Ailsite

used for making curling stones,

not just in Scotland but around the world.

The first thing that strikes me coming ashore Ailsa Craig here

is the amount of industrial heritage.

-I never expected to see a railway line.

-I know.

Well, it was going to be used every day

with bogies being pulled by engines.

There's an engine room just up ahead of us.

They would have been pulling fuel from the mainland, supplies, food.

-They would've been taking out the granite.

-Where does this line go to?

Does it just come up to the lighthouse area here

or does it go further?

From what you can see nowadays,

it just goes up to the lighthouse and to the end of the buildings as well.

-There's a tea room over there.

-You mentioned the magic word - tearoom.

-Where?

-You won't get many scones today.

But, yes, just a few metres that way was the tea room.

And what's the story of that?

The wives of the workers would have come over in the summer

-and visitors would come over every day.

-Just for tourists?

Yeah, and they would have had their tea.

So how many people actually lived here at one time?

I think in the late 1800s, when the quarrying first started,

it would have been about 30 men who covered both the quarry work

and the lighthouse-keeping

and then as time went on, quarrying got bigger,

demand for the granite got bigger,

it would have been up to about 100 men.

The quarry and the men it employed have long since gone

but the industry today is still thriving.

-Last year, they took a few thousand tonnes.

-Few thousand tonnes?

-Yes.

-Wow.

-But now, it's not dynamited.

There is enough stone loose at the bottom of Ailsa Craig

to just get collected and taken over.

This small island, really just a big lump of rock,

has an amazing history.

It's been a prison,

a haven for Roman Catholics during the Scottish Reformation

and it boasts a 16th-century castle.

But it's the bird population that makes Ailsa Craig

a site of international importance.

Here, you'll find guillemots, kittiwakes and razorbills

but dominating the air are 36,000 pairs of gannets.

It's got the steep cliffs,

big area for them to nest on which is quite inaccessible for predators

so they feel quite safe. They need the height as well.

When the chicks fledge, because they're so bulky,

they just have that height and they launch themselves off

and they glide for a few kilometres

and then come down safely on the water

instead of having to lift off from the ground and not getting very far.

The big thing that affected the wildlife was rats being introduced

early on in the 19th century and they completely eradicated the puffins.

From thousands and thousands of puffins blackening the skies,

there was zero so now the island has been cleared of rats

and the puffins are slowly making a comeback.

Back on the mainland again

and I've been following the Ayrshire Coastal Path,

a 94-mile trail that finishes just south of Greenock.

I'm on the beach north of Troon

with photographer and author Keith Fergus.

He's written a guide to this long-distance walk and I'm amazed.

You wouldn't expect a route so close to our urban centres

to be so attractive.

The beach to Irvine is around six miles long.

Lovely walking all the way.

You get some lovely dunes here as well.

Lots of flora and fauna in the summer months and some great views.

This has always been a place that's been with me

since I was a wee boy, essentially.

Growing up in Glasgow, it was the closest stretch of coastline to us,

about 15 or 20 miles from our home

so we used to always come down for day trips.

Coming down to the Ayrshire Coast and seeing the Arran profile

across the water was really quite something.

It's a coastline of castles, isn't it?

It is a coastline of castles.

My own personal favourite is Dunure Castle,

which, around the 15th century, was the seat of the Kennedy Clan

and nearby was Crossraguel Abbey.

Now, the abbeys in those days were quite powerful establishments

and there was a chap called Allan Stewart

felt he owned the rights to Crossraguel Abbey.

So arguments took place between the two men,

but it came to a head when Gilbert, along with 16 of his men,

captured Allan Stewart and took him to Dunure

and what took place was an episode called the Roasting of Allan Stewart.

And he was taken down into what's ominously titled the Black Vault

and here, Stewart was stripped, he was bound

and he was roasted over an open fire

until he signed the deeds over to Gilbert.

But what came to light about a week later

was that the signing of the deeds

hadn't been done in front of a witness.

Gilbert wasn't a man to let this worry him,

so again, he was bound, put over an open fire and roasted

and until this time, in front of a witness, he signed the deeds over.

Lots of little stories of bloodshed and battles and things like that,

which intrigues me and again,

just adds to the interest and the spice of the Ayrshire Coast.

Tell me a wee bit about your own background, Keith.

How did you eventually become a full-time author and photographer?

Well, just from leaving school, I was getting into the printing trade,

which is one I really loved.

-What was your role there?

-It was what's called pre-press,

so really before the plate-making side of things,

before the images are put onto paper.

I served my time, a four-year apprenticeship,

but like many industries, redundancies came.

And around the same time, from my early '20s onwards,

I really got into hillwalking and also into photography at that point.

Now, the photography was really just a means of capturing memories,

but then I was being told that I was actually quite good at this.

So after that, I got a few postcards off the ground.

With the contacts I have in the printing trade,

I managed to get them printed and it really just stemmed from that.

My kids were only five and two at the time,

so it was a big decision, but one that I really felt I had to do.

It was a wee rat gnawing away at me

that if I didn't do it then, I probably never would've done it.

-And no regrets about doing it?

-Absolutely not, no.

It's a lot of hard work, but for a lot of the time,

you're out and about and outdoors

doing something that I really, really love,

walking in some of the finest scenery in the world,

taking photographs of these magnificent places

and actually making a small but decent enough living from it.

I'm getting close to the end of my section

of the Ayrshire Coast Path

and it's been quite a nostalgic journey for me,

because I've passed through some of the little towns

that formed the background to many of my early teenage holidays

in the sixties.

Some of you might find this hard to believe,

but 50 years ago, during the summer months,

this South Ardrossan Beach would've been jam-packed with people.

The bairns would be building great big sandcastles,

the parents would be lying back in their swimming costumes

trying to tease every moment out of the Scottish sun

and the granddads would be paddling out into the shallows,

trouser legs rolled up to their knees,

pipe in mouth, bonnet on head.

Not quite Torremolinos, but, you know, we absolutely loved it.

I've covered nearly 100 miles of this Western Way walk.

Now it's time to give my legs a rest

and let the CalMac Ferry take the strain.

It's about 12 miles from Ardrossan to Brodick on the Isle of Arran

and in that dozen miles, it feels as

though you're going to another country, it feels like going abroad.

And while I spent a lot of time

as a young teenager on the Ayrshire Coast,

I didn't actually visit Arran until I was about 19 or 20.

And I'll tell you something,

it opened up a completely new world to me.

My route through Arran takes me over its highest point, Goat Fell,

and then back down to sea level

for a beautiful walk

along the North Eastern Coast.

Then there are two more ferry journeys,

first over to the Kintyre Peninsula

and then onwards to Islay and Jura,

amongst the most southerly of our Western Isles.

Isle of Arran is often referred to as Scotland in miniature,

but I'll tell you,

there's absolutely nothing miniature about Arran's mountains.

When I first came here,

I was astounded by the tight and narrow ridges and aretes,

by the great granite up-thrusts and by the isolated summits.

The hills of Arran simply blew my mind.

But before I go there,

I want to learn a little bit about the island's coast

and how best we can protect it.

Sometimes, we're showing photographs of the marine life

to people visiting Arran and if we ask them where it is,

they will guess that it's maybe the Caribbean

or the Red Sea or something like that,

but actually it's just here, it's just a few metres offshore.

And that's one of the problems - because people can't see it,

they don't appreciate it to the extent that it should be appreciated.

And also, it means they're not seeing the damage.

In 1995, two Arran divers realised

that the once-vibrant sea bed around this island was dying.

Together with local volunteers,

they formed the Community of Arran Seabed Trust,

which appropriately spells out the word COAST.

Today, Andrew Binnie is the organisation's manager.

He explained what had caused the problems to a coastline

that looks pristine to an untrained eye like mine.

Marine Scotland have done studies on this

and they actually produced a Clyde Ecosystem Report

and the main reason was simply over-fishing.

We've just fished it too hard for too long.

There's been poor management.

For instance, there was a three-mile limit

on trawling the whole of the Clyde

and that was taken away in 1984 during the Thatcher era

and we're now having to fight hard

to get back to where we were quite a number of years ago.

In 2008, after many years of campaigning,

COAST established Scotland's first and only no-take zone

here in Lamlash Bay.

It's very simple.

No-one can remove any marine life whatsoever from this area.

What this has demonstrated is that a local community

can have a big influence on how their local marine environment is managed.

There's no fences out there. There's no barriers in the waters there

so as fish or crustaceans get bigger, they get more and more fertile.

So all the egg, all the spawn from those animals is dispersed,

not just in the no-take zone, but outside the no-take zone as well

so it has a huge benefit on surrounding waters.

So I suppose interpretative signs like this are quite a handy reminder.

It gives a very good idea of what's below the water.

It's actually quite cleverly done.

We've got different signs that tell you things

about different species, so stuff on here about seals and moon jellyfish

and the kelps and you can see cushion stars there.

The kids really like the cuckoo wrasse

because the male cuckoo wrasse starts off as female

and at a certain stage in his life,

if there are not enough males around, it converts,

the odd one converts into male and it becomes more colourful.

You can tease them by asking them

to think about what it would be like if they suddenly changed sex.

-They think that's quite amusing.

-That really sticks in their mind.

Yeah, they remember the cuckoo wrasse.

And this is us coming out to the north-east corner

of the no-take zone.

A marine environment is something we should really feel proud of.

Personally, we'd like to see a bit more of a visionary approach

to the way we manage our seas.

It would be a lot of people and we agree,

think that it would be good to have

a return of the three-mile limit exclusion zone

to trawling within coastal waters.

We take it for granted, but most people around the world

don't have anything like these coastlines

or the diversity of sea life you get off Scotland.

Are you optimistic about the future?

If we all do our work and if groups like COAST do their work,

and if other communities around Scotland

really take charge of and have a real say in how they manage

their marine environment,

it's within our power to completely mess it up,

and we have done that, particularly within Clyde.

But it's also within our power to manage it effectively.

And there was some good news in July for this community action group.

The Scottish Government designated these waters around south Arran

as a marine protected area.

A fantastic success story for the local people and their campaign.

I'm taking a wee break from my journey north

and I'm travelling from one island to another

where the community has embraced a completely different culture.

Holy Isle is only a ten-minute ferry ride from Arran,

but you enter a very different world.

I first came here over ten years ago

and I'll never forget being amazed at what I found.

This island has a spiritual heritage dating back to the 6th century.

But in the early 1990s, it was bought by the Buddhist community

at Samye Ling in the Borders.

Today, the monks and nuns use it as a spiritual and recreational retreat

and you might think you were back in Tibet.

Coming into Holy Isle is pure bliss,

I love it, yes.

I mean, it's a wonderful place and it does make a difference

when you're away from your normal daily responsibilities,

whatever they are or whoever you are.

Ani Lhamo might seem an unlikely person to be a Buddhist nun.

She was brought up in Fort William,

studied English and Psychology at university

and then became a computer programmer.

Today, she's Secretary to the Abbot at Samye Ling,

but this highland is a special place for her,

somewhere where landscape and religion have been intertwined

throughout history.

Holy Isle has been associated with spiritual life

for hundreds and hundreds of years.

That is the essence of its beauty.

And then on top of that, you have the fact

that it is almost like it encapsulates Scotland

in one tiny island.

It has everything - the sea, the mountain and it's so peaceful.

Is the island broken up into areas for particular purposes?

There are the areas that are fenced off for trees,

there are the areas that are free for the animals,

there are the places where the humans live

and there are areas where humans just don't go,

some, because they physically can't because there are cliffs

and some, because we want them to be preserved as a natural space

so that the animals and the plants have them for themselves.

Ani, I'm really taken by this.

At first, I thought it was just a painting on the rock,

but it's actually a carving.

-It's carved, yes. This is White Tara.

-White Tara?

And White Tara is a symbol of compassion and in particular,

it's the kind of compassion that brings good health and long life.

And then every aspect of her appearance

symbolises something connected to that.

So for example, the white colour of her skin...

..it symbolises the fact that she's very peaceful and loving.

And then if you look on the palms of her hands,

her forehead, also the soles of her feet, there's a little eye,

so she has seven eyes altogether.

So the idea of that is that she has all these eyes

that are constantly looking at the suffering of sentient beings

-so that she's ready to help them.

-You say this is White Tara.

That would suggest there are other shades of Tara.

Mm, there are, there are 21 altogether

and they're all a different colour.

Why Holy Isle? Why are you actually here in Presbyterian Scotland?

I think it's a series of minor miracles.

So first of all,

a couple of Tibetan Lamas ended up in the Borders in Samye Ling in 1967.

And then the younger brother of one of these Lamas went to America

and spent a few years in retreat.

And it's towards the end of 1990,

the current owner of Holy Isle

had apparently had a kind of vision or dream

where the mother of Christ had appeared to her

and told her that she should give the island to the Buddhists.

Except she wasn't exactly giving.

She did want some financial remuneration,

so she approached Lama Yeshe

and he visited the island and he was very much taken with it

and he said he'd had a dream when he was in retreat

that he'd been in a place like that

and he'd actually told his teacher and the teacher said,

"It's just a dream, carry on," didn't pay any attention to him.

But then he said, "That was my dream."

So then he thought, "This is my island."

But eventually, he went back to the owner and said,

"Look, will you accept this amount?"

Which was less than half she was asking for, and she accepted.

One of the problems with long-distance walking

is that you're constantly on the move.

Now and again, you come across a spot

where you just want to stop and soak up the atmosphere a little bit

and Holy Isle is most definitely one of those places.

But instead, I'll be moving on and the hills beckon.

Tomorrow, it's the high hills of the Isle of Arran.

I'm making my way through the grounds of Brodick Castle and...

it's hot and sticky here in the trees.

I'm headed for Goat Fell, the highest mountain in Arran

and then I'm going to drop down the other side to the high bealach

between Glen Rosa and Glen Sannox

and follow Glen Sannox down to the coast.

I think...I hope, there's going to be a bit of a breeze on the hillside

and I can get away from the stickiness and the midges.

The Hills of Arran have always been very special to me.

It was here...

about 40-odd years ago that I decided

I wanted to spend the rest of my life climbing mountains

and exploring wild places.

I remember that day as though it was yesterday.

It was a bit like today, it was hot and sunny

and we'd been up on the high ridges.

And we were jogging down here,

jogging because we had to catch the evening ferry from Brodick.

And I thought to myself what a wonderful day we've had,

"I want to spend the rest of my life doing this."

The fateful decision had been made.

And you know this, I've never regretted it.

These Arran Hills are the remnants of a volcano

dating from 60 million years ago.

Goat Fell itself is 2,866 feet,

yet in spite of not being a Munro,

its close proximity to the island's largest community at Brodick

has ensured a succession of boot prints to the summit

that stretches back down the years.

And there's been the odd mystery too.

In 1889, the body of an English hillwalker, Edwin Rose,

was found in a howth - that's a sort of stone shelter -

on the slopes of Goat Fell.

His skull had been cracked open and his back was broken,

injuries that were consistent with a long fall.

Shortly afterwards, the police apprehended another hillwalker,

25-year-old John Laurie, and charged him with Rose's murder.

Now, Laurie confessed to having robbed the body

but he said he didn't kill Rose.

Despite the support of the mountaineering establishment

of the time, he was eventually convicted of Rose's murder.

He continued to plead his innocence until he died in 1930

in the Lunatic Division, as it was known, of Perth Prison.

So was Edwin Rose pushed or did he fall?

I guess we'll never know the answer.

Oh, my word, this view is sensational.

I can think of very few other places in Scotland

where the view is as rugged and grand as this.

Look at that ridge coming down from Beinn Tarsuinn,

over A Chir onto Cir Mhor, with Caisteal Abhail behind it there

and its tight ridge going down to the Witch's Step,

the Ceum na Caillich.

And then in front of me here, North Goat Fell

with a lovely ridge running out to the Cioch na h-Oighe,

with the whole of the Firth of Clyde in the background.

It's absolutely fantastic.

I've always had a feeling of sadness leaving the high tops behind

and today, the weather's been exceptional.

But Arran is about far more than just getting to the summits.

Glen Sannox is a beautiful, tranquil place

and as the clouds start to cover the mountains behind me,

a perfect finale to my time in the hills.

I've come down from the glen

and I'm now on the route of the Isle of Arran Coastal Way.

This is a trail that was set up by two local men,

Dick Sim and Hugh McKerrell

and it was their dream to see a long-distance walking path

circumnavigate the whole of the island of Arran.

And in 2003, they invited me to come across

and officially open the route.

And while I was here,

I took the opportunity of walking the route over four or five days.

In those days, I have to say,

much of the route was a bit rough and ready,

but in between times, they've smoothed out a lot of it

and today, it's a pretty grand route.

Also, in between times, sadly, both Dick and Hugh have passed away,

but I do like to think that wherever they are,

they're looking down on their creation,

the Isle of Arran Coastal Way, with some pride,

justified pride, I think.

So, guys, wherever you are, thank you, it was a great idea.

I've been spending a bit of time searching out a geological feature

that's known as Hutton's Unconformity.

In the 18th century, Professor James Hutton

questioned the orthodox thinking of the time

that the Earth was 10,000 years old

and had been formed by one single great cataclysmic force.

In his travels around Scotland, he had come across layers of rock

that had been formed and created by different forces

and at different times

and these layers led him to believe

that the Earth wasn't 10,000 years old,

but probably very many millions of years old.

Now, I'm at this area here, and to my untrained eye,

it just looks very similar to other coastal areas,

but I know many, many geologists

who get very, very excited at coming to an area like this,

that actually changed our complete thinking

about the age of this planet we live on.

I've just come across this rather nice view indicator

and there's a lovely bit of writing on here

that I think describes me to a tee.

It says, "But tired and hungry though he be

"and with the very smoke of the little inn curling before his eyes,

"let him pause for a moment at the entrance of the loch

"and sitting himself on a granite boulder,

"quietly contemplate the placid scene before him."

It's a scene describing Lochranza

and that's exactly where I'm heading for.

Lochranza, then the ferry across to Claonaig

and the low-lying lands of Kintyre.

I'm crossing over the Peninsula of Kintyre

and under normal circumstances, I'd probably go north from here,

but I've found myself so close to a place that I've always wanted to

visit that I simply can't resist it.

So I'm following this short bit of road down to Kennacraig

and the ferry to Islay.

I'm visiting five islands in the course of The Western Way

and three are now behind me.

The rugged sea cliffs of Ailsa Craig

formed a stark contrast to the gentle scenery of Holy Isle.

Arran, as it is often said, really is Scotland in miniature.

Now I'm heading for my final two islands

and I can't wait to explore them.

You know, I've been promising myself a visit to Islay

for years and years and I'm really delighted to have finally made it.

I'm pleased to be here,

despite the fact that there are no mountains on Islay over 500m.

But that's not really a problem on a long walk like this

where mountaintops aren't the priority.

I'm actually much more interested in discovering what I can

about the landscapes and the places I'm passing through

and I suspect I've got quite a lot to learn about Islay.

Whisky distilling, agriculture

and tourism are the main industries here today.

But from Viking times right through to the end of the 19th century,

a major industry was lead ore and silver mining.

Here at Mulreesh was the biggest mine on the island

and it's kind of hard to imagine in this beautiful place,

this lovely, quiet place, that this was a major centre of industry.

There's not much left today, other than the old engine house,

a few bits of rubble and several mine shafts.

You may well wonder what I'm looking for,

but I noticed on the map an indication of a chapel

and that intrigued me,

because this is a fairly quiet, remote part of Islay,

not much habitation and a chapel would suggest

quite a lot of buildings around.

So I've come looking for a pile of rubble really,

but I haven't found that.

What I've found is a couple of mounds of what looks like an

outer wall and an inner wall, which may well have been the chapel.

Now, the buildings at the iron ore mine were late 19th-century

and they're still fairly intact, so I would suggest this is much older.

And I would guess, only a guess, maybe 14th, 15th century,

possibly even 11th, 12th century.

But I would also guess

that this isn't a congregational chapel as such, but a cell,

a Kil in the Gaelic, as in Kilmartin or Kilhone

or Kilbeg, a place where a holy man would come and pray and meditate.

And what a lovely place to come and pray.

Islay is steeped in history

and there's an undisputed jewel in its crown, Finlaggan.

Between the 13th and 15th centuries,

this was the seat of the Lords of the Isles and their headquarters.

Surprisingly, the importance of this site

wasn't realised until very recently.

30 years ago, a group of local people came together

to preserve this iconic place.

It was only in about 1980

that the schoolmaster at Keills, Donald McKechnie,

was very keen for Scottish history and thought that this place

should be made more available to the public

so they could come and see the ruins.

And how much did you know about it at that time?

Oh, very, very little.

Well, never taught in the school,

parents were too busy working and nobody went near it.

We're looking down there on an island and some ruins on it.

What would that have looked like, do you think, in your mind's eye?

Oh, a very, very busy place,

because they would always have folk coming and going

to the other part of the sea kingdom, as they called it,

and it's such a fertile place, they'd be able to grow barley,

to brew the ale and there would be deer and wild boar

and going up the side of the hill there, there's

the small crofting township, which would've been in existence then.

Down the shores of the loch,

there's places where there's been settlements.

This is probably one of the most significant sites in the Hebrides.

How proud are you as a local man that this is here on Islay?

Oh, I am very proud. This was the ancient seat,

and all the clan chiefs came here for inauguration ceremonies.

It is the most important site.

In 1989, excavations at Finlaggan began in earnest

and continued for the next eight years.

The driving force behind this work was archaeologist David Caldwell.

Until recently, he had the grand title

of Keeper of Scotland and Europe at the National Museums of Scotland.

The physical remains here at Finlaggan are hugely impressive,

but David's in no doubt that the significance of the site

goes far beyond the buildings.

This society, this culture,

they're what underlies our image of who we are as Scots.

When we think of people in the Medieval period,

we think of great towns, we think of great churches, cathedrals,

we think of streets and merchants and all sorts of activities.

Now, the people who lived here,

the Lords of the Isles and their people,

they knew about all that but they didn't go for it.

They developed an alternative way of doing things.

I really like the notion of an alternative society in medieval times.

What made these people different?

It was a conscious way of looking at things.

The Lords of the Isles in many ways were seen as kings.

They had a vast population, they were powerful,

they could field large armies

and yet they weren't based in cities.

There were opinions that they should actually integrate much more

with the Kingdom of Scots

and there were other opinions that they should be standoffish.

And it was those latter opinions, if you like, that won through.

Now, there's a couple of very obvious remains here.

Do these two buildings date back to Medieval times too?

Yes, the one you're looking at up there is the chapel

and it was very important to the Lords of the Isles

to have a chapel on the island

because it meant that they had a clergy and they had a chaplain,

a guy who was effectively doing their administration for them.

And that's probably where the documents would've been written

and witnessed and there's a graveyard the other side

and evidence for a commemorative cross.

And the other building you're looking at started off life

as a medieval addition to the Great Hall,

but the way you're looking at it now

is the way it was transformed into a house,

a dwelling house, for the big man here in the 16th century

after the end of the Lordship of the Isles.

Because the thing about a lot of these archaeological sites

is that they're not just all one period

and when you see all these humps and bumps,

you're looking at buildings and features of different depth.

This is a substantial mound.

It's the ruins of the Great Hall,

the largest, most important building on the island in the Medieval period.

And you know what?

It doesn't actually look all that big at the moment, does it?

But if you saw this with its walls upstanding, you would realise

it was actually as big in fact say as the hall in Linlithgow Palace.

You've got a main chamber here and at the far end of it there,

we know there was a big fireplace where the lord himself would sit.

And then across the hall, you can see just back there,

there's a cross wall

which separated off the service area next to the kitchens.

It was part of what being a great lord was all about,

having a great hall where you could entertain important people,

give them far too much to drink and to eat

and music playing in the background.

I have an image of these guys

actually sitting out in their deckchairs...

Well, they didn't have deckchairs, all right, but you know what I mean.

..on a beautiful day like this

and they would have their goblets of claret

and they'd be eating their nuts

and having very learned, educated discussions.

These were the people that were often seen as savages

by other parts of the country,

but I don't think that's a very fair way of looking at them.

When we walked in here at first,

I had this distinct feeling that you were almost coming home.

I've spent so much time since 1988

thinking, puzzling over this site and what it's all about

and trying to test it

to make sure you get the best possible interpretation.

So it's so much in my mind, I literally do recognise this site

from long experience on a stone by stone basis,

so that when I came down here with you today,

I was looking at it as if it was a large part of me.

A constant theme of these long walks of mine

is the fact that I've been following Scotland's less-trodden byways

as opposed to the busier highways

and I'm just amazed that I've actually walked

from the Mull of Galloway all the way to Islay

following paths and tracks like that.

And it's also been a real sense of discovery for me,

because a lot of the areas I've passed through,

I hadn't visited previously.

Finlaggan was just amazing,

because for as long as I can remember,

I've had an interest in the Lords of the Isles

and to actually go to their seat was very, very special.

And the walk I had up Goat Fell,

although I've been on Goat Fell many times before,

I think that was probably the best conditions

I've ever had on that hill.

And it was a real privilege to get something of an insight

into the Buddhist community on Holy Isle.

The Ayrshire Coast was as I've never seen it before

and I'd never actually been to Mull of Galloway

and I was just totally taken with not only the Mull,

but the Rhins of Galloway

and that beautiful walk right up the coastline.

So here I am on Islay,

a place that I've been trying to get to for such a long time.

That brings me to the end of this programme,

but I'm looking ahead to the future now.

The Paps of Jura are hiding themselves from me at the moment,

but I hope by the time I get across to Jura,

they'll have cleared.

And then from the Paps, it'll back onto the mainland,

up the Cowal Way, an area I don't really know at all,

to Loch Lomond, then up a section of familiar territory

on the West Highland Way up to Bridge of Orchy

and then a fantastic stretch of country,

through the Black Mount, one of my favourite lochs, Loch Etive,

Taynuilt and lovely Glen Lonan, all the way to journey's end at Oban.

But that's all to come and I hope you can join me

as we take that remarkable journey along the Western Way.