Special - Roads Less Travelled: The West Highlands, Part 1 The Adventure Show

Welcome to the West Highlands of Scotland,

and to some of the most magnificent scenery

you'll find anywhere in the world.

This year I'm taking things slowly,

spending the spring, summer and autumn

winding my way up this coastline,

heading into the mountains,

and delving into some fantastic hidden corners of our land.

This is a journey with a difference,

because my base will be my pride and joy - my campervan.

That'll carry my bike, an inflatable boat

and, of course, my walking boots.

It means I can reach some of the most spectacular parts of Scotland.

Oh, I'm in heaven!

This is as good as it gets.

You may recall that a year ago at the end of my Western Way walk,

I said I was going to start this year's journey just up the coast, at Oban.

But I've been tempted a wee bit further south, to a fantastic group

of rugged islands that have some of the finest land and seascapes

in all of Scotland.

I'm on the island of Luing,

one of many Argyllshire islands that lie to the south of Mull,

and I'm reminded of the words of the great American poet, Robert Frost,

who once wrote,

"Two paths diverted in a wood and I took the path less travelled."

And that's the point of this journey.

I want to take some of those less travelled roads

of the Western Highlands.

You know, you can take the man out the mountains,

but you can't always take the mountains out of the man.

And I've got this thing, it's like a compulsion.

Wherever I am I like to try and get to the highest point in the landscape.

I know it sounds kind of daft,

but sometimes it's not so daft.

This is Cnon Dhomhnuill, less than 100 metres in height,

and it's the highest point on the island of Luing,

the Isle of the Long Ship.

And you can see why they called it that, what a fantastic seascape!

Look at that, across there is the Ross of Mull,

Ben More in the distance. It's fantastic.

Then the Garvellachs right down the horizon,

with Holy Island where Columbus' mother lived,

and the wonderful island of Scarba.

It just kind of goes on and on. It's absolutely wonderful.

On a day like this, where else would you want to be?

The island of Luing is one of a small group

known as the Slate Islands Of Argyll.

The other two are Seil and Easdale.

Easdale is famous for its world stone skimming championships

and Seil Island is pretty well-known for its bridge over the Atlantic.

Luing, I would say, was possibly one of Scotland's best kept secrets.

There's beautiful walks here, marvellous coastline

and a fascinating industrial heritage.

And a local community that's vibrant and enthusiastic

about placing this island on the tourism map of Scotland.

Descending from Luing's highest point, I think I've earned a reward

for my first summit of this journey.

And I'm in luck, because this place has only just been opened.

This is the Atlantic Islands Centre,

a community-run project with an interpreter centre and a cafe,

and it's this beautifully restored slate building, absolutely fantastic.

And the important point is I'm their very first customer.

'Yet, I'm not here just to drink the coffee.

'I've come inside this lovely building to meet Fiona Cruickshanks.

'She's the district nurse and her island roots,

'like the exhibits in this visitor centre, go back generations.'

What exactly is this?

Is it some sort of art installation?

No, this is the lens from the Fladda Lighthouse, which is sitting

out in the Firth of Lorne.

My father was the lighthouse attendant and boatman,

and his father before him, his father before him.

I'm one of five children, so our job was yearly to go out

and to maintain the lighthouse, sweeping it all out,

shining up the brass, painting the walls with whitewash or whatever.

It's incredibly complex.

It's amazing. It's got so many facets.

I didn't realise how many till I had to dust it

for the opening of the centre the other night.

It was always my mum's job to do the lens of the lighthouse

and we had to do the brass or the spiral of the staircase going up.

We never got to touch the lens.

You can open it up here and swing this out

so that you can get in to clean.

Did you have any real sort of adventures going out to the lighthouse?

There was always adventures,

especially when my father was involved.

He had a style of painting of his own, and the last bit to be done

was always the big tank.

And he would just run along the top with the pot of paint.

And when my father died, the job went with him,

which is really quite sad.

But now, the digital age,

it's managed from the Northern Lighthouse Board in Edinburgh.

Fiona, we've just left Cullipool on this lovely coastal trail

below the cliffs here.

I've noticed that a feature of certainly that village,

and a lot of the villages about here, are all these little terraced white houses.

Who lived in these houses?

The quarrymen. They lived in these.

They're very small, a bit like the but and ben, but they were

joined together, terraced, so it was very close-quarter living.

Two rooms and a loft and very often the loft was full of hens.

According to the health reports that are coming out

from the late 1800s, there were hens in the loft.

Horrible.

But, yeah, the slate quarriers, that's where they lived

and reared their families.

There's a lot of houses. There must have been a lot of people employed in this industry?

Hundreds, yeah.

Was there something special about this slate here that made it

so popular at that time?

I think the fact that it was just so robust.

They said it was the slate that roofed the world,

and certainly there's many buildings in Glasgow

and worldwide that have slate from this area.

Give me an idea of the kind of life of a slate quarryman.

I think it must have been horrendous.

We look at it through romantic eyes

and look at the conservation area, the cliffs here with the primroses

and think it's beautiful, but it must have been hell on Earth.

The dust, the explosives, hanging off the edge of a cliff on a rope,

splitting their hands, their lungs.

Children, if they fell on the slate

and you got a bit of slate on your knee, you're left with

a tattoo of slate, cos it's really difficult to get out.

As a nurse, I know that.

You've really got to soak and scrub to get that slate out of the wound.

And when did it finish?

The mid 1960s.

There are quarrymen still alive.

In my lifetime there was one old boy, Donny Bann, who used to sit

and split slates on the shore.

'Of course you can do more with slate than simply roof houses.

'Today are the annual skimming championships.

'They'll be held just across the water on Easdale,

'but I'm determined to be champion here on Luing.'

Oh!

'Sadly, Fiona has the benefit of local knowledge.'

Whoa! Put it there.

That's a winner. Well done.

It's a short ferry ride from Luing to Seil,

just five minutes to get from one island to the next.

I'm now heading steadily north, and my campervan will eat up the miles.

Once I've reached Port Appin, it's an island hop to Lismore,

and then back on the mainland to wind up through Glencoe,

Sunart and Ardnamurchan.

Then, I'll be travelling through the majestic Kintail Mountains,

the wild coastline in Torridon,

the long shore of Loch Maree,

the isolated Melvaig Peninsular,

to finally finish high above Ullapool.

All that's still to come.

Right now, I've arrived on Seil.

The island of Seil has a bigger population than Luing

but, you know, there's still plenty of space to explore.

Lots of areas where you can just wander about and see what's round the next corner.

And there's this real sense that it's a very hilly, craggy,

almost mountainous landscape.

It's a glaciated landscape with deep glens, a folded,

crumpled landscape that sort of calls out, "Explore me!"

You know, I really like the notion of following a footpath

and having no idea where it's going.

You get the sense of peering over horizons

not knowing your destination.

I had thought I might follow this ridge up onto the high point there

onto the top of the hill.

But this coastline looks absolutely fantastic.

I'm going to go that way.

Behind me is Inch Island.

This low-lying, craggy, bare island.

It looks quite sombre, really.

Somebody in the village told me that a few years ago,

a gentleman from London used to come and spend six months of the year

every year on the island.

He built a wee hut for himself

and he lived the life of a hermit, if you like.

When she told me that, I thought, "What a wonderful thing to do."

It sounded idyllic.

But then, when I thought more about it, I'm not sure that

I, personally, could do that.

I think I'd miss too many things.

You know, I can't help feeling a tinge of envy when I see

sailors enjoying weather like this on waters like these.

Because these are amongst the finest sailing waters in the world

for yachtsmen.

People come from everywhere to places like Crookhaven on Loch Melfort,

or to Kerrera, or to Oban to the marinas.

And then sail from here round these islands,

round by the Ross of Mull, to Colonsay, Oronsay, Coll and Tiree.

It's just absolutely out of this world.

I talk a lot about the freedom of the hills,

but the freedom of these seaways must be something else.

Oh!

Wow.

Oh, I'm in heaven.

This is as good as it gets.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Another day, and another weather system.

That's Scotland for you.

But I'm not going to let a little rain deter me.

I'm back on the mainland, and I've come to a remote

and rarely visited area just a few miles south of Oban.

No-one lives in these hills and glens today,

but there's evidence of a vibrant past.

These are the remains of the Duachy Standing Stones,

and it's quite interesting seeing them here in this landscape.

When you first arrive here you think this is just a big empty place,

but, in actual fact, this signifies that people have lived here

for well over 1,000 years,

probably over 2,000 years.

The name "Duachy" means "meeting place".

And although we don't actually know why these standing stones were built,

it may have been as a place of worship,

it may have been a place of human sacrifice,

it may have been a way of studying the stars,

we just don't know.

But meeting place is as good as any.

There's lots of things that tell us

that people have used the land here for a long time

and I'm going off now for a wee search to look for something else

that I think would tie in with this whole idea of a meeting place.

I've said I'm on a search for something,

but, in actual fact, I'm on a quest.

It's the quest to find the Suidhe Bhreanain,

which is the Seat Of St Brendan.

I've been given some written instructions of how to find it

because it's apparently not very easy.

I've been told to cross this ford

and then go through a couple of gates, and then there's a whole list

of instructions I've got to follow to the letter.

So, come and join me on this wee navigational exercise up the hill.

Gate number one.

Gate two.

I'm now looking for the old abandoned croft house.

This must be it.

And from here, I've got to look for a low hill,

which I think is that one,

and about a third of the way up it there's a fence,

so I've got to make for the end of that fence and then carry on.

Right. OK, I've got to climb the fence and then follow this wire fence

for exactly 50 paces.

So, I'd better climb over and start counting.

You can count with me, if you like!

Ready? One...

Two, three...

..31, 32, 33, 34...

..47, 48, 49, 50.

Spot on!

I've now got to follow this low wall for 200 paces,

and I think you're going to run out of fingers and toes!

OK, here we go.

One, two, three...

..188, 199, 190, 91...

..96, 97, 98, 99, 200.

So, I've now got to go to my right and step out five paces.

One, two, three,

four, five. Wahey!

Found it! Woohoo!

St Brendan's Seat.

The Suidhe Bhreanain.

HE GROANS

Woohoo!

Now, we know a lot about St Columba,

who brought his message of Christianity from Ireland to Scotland.

But St Brendan actually predates Columba,

and he established his first church on Seil Island.

And it's said that he came up here and carved out this seat where

he could sit and watch the meeting place at the Standing Stones.

You know, despite the rain and the wind,

I'm absolutely thrilled to have found the Seat Of St Brendan.

He was known as Brendan The Explorer,

and when I first heard of his story I went to Ireland and I climbed

a mountain called Brandon, which is named after St Brendan.

And it was from there that he set sail in his currach to Iceland,

Greenland and North America.

And today, historians will tell you that when Christopher Columbus

arrived in the New World, there were already Irish priests settled there.

He was a real character, was St Brendan.

But I'm about to delve even more deeply into our past,

from a few thousand years to many millions.

I've travelled north to Port Appin.

It's a corner of the West Highlands I don't know well, and that's a pity

because the landscape here deserves a closer look.

To help me understand it,

in fact, to read the many messages concealed in the rocks along

this coastline, I've enlisted the help of marine geologist John Howe.

John, over the years I've met a number of geologists and,

without exception, they're almost nutty in their enthusiasm

for the subject.

What is it about geology that gets you guys so excited?

It's a tremendous science.

It's the time involved - is what gets me excited.

I mean, these rocks, these rocks that we're sitting on here,

these are 700, 750 million years old.

And I don't know about you, I have trouble understanding

the processes of how these rocks were laid down

and the processes that could have deposited such an enormous thickness

of sand all that time ago.

What kind of rocks are we actually sitting on?

This is a big pile of sandstone that's been altered and changed.

These are the Appin quartzites.

These sands have all been washed in from rivers from the erosion

of a continent,

a continent that's long gone, hundreds of millions of years ago.

But of course, what we can see in these rocks is how

those sediments were deposited.

But also, these rocks are so old they've been squashed and cooked.

They've been altered, so they're not sort of sandstones, they're actually

turned into these rocks called quartzites,

so they're a metamorphic rock.

And this is why this stuff is quite tricky.

So, it almost sounds as though you've got to be a bit of a

forensic detective as well?

There is a little bit.

Geology's a lovely science in so much as you do need to have

a bit of imagination, "arm-wavy", people would say.

It's a bit of an arm-wavy science.

So, we need to try and do a forensic analysis

to try and pull the pieces together

and work out how these rocks were laid down.

I think we're seeing some ripples just beginning to emerge round this point.

So, this is quite nice,

the rocks would have presumably laid down horizontally.

They've been folded and bent vertically, and just here

we're seeing where the rock's broken,

this nice washed broken face,

we can see the layers within the rock are gradually pinching out

down towards here.

So, this is evidence for a rippled seabed.

So, what's created the forces to make the rock actually move?

To actually fold the rock is tectonics,

so the surface of the Earth is divided up into plates

and as those plates with the continents and the ocean basins on

are moving apart, there's enormous stresses and tensions.

And the recent Nepal earthquake is a dreadful example

of the kind of forces.

So, that earthquake is formed from the collision

of India going under Asia.

Here we've got, hundreds of millions of years ago, there was a

large continent that broke apart.

And as it broke apart, there were little seas forming between these

fragments of continents, and this is the evidence for a shallow sea.

It's... It's amazing stuff.

John, you've been showing us

some of the small print of the geological history of this area

but what about the bigger print, the bigger things around?

What are we looking at here?

I'm aware of walking below these great cliffs,

is that all part of this whole geological history?

It is, it is.

I mean, this is a wonderful area, I mean, the whole Port Appin area

is full of these kinds of relics of the more recent past.

These are sea cliffs and we're standing on a beach, in a sense,

-this is where the...

-What, this track?

Yeah, well, where we are, this kind of raised area with these

cliffs behind us and the sea is down there,

so the land has risen up, in a sense, about nine metres here.

So, we're nine metres above the present day sea level.

The shape of the landscape here is formed at the end of the last glaciation.

As the ice melted, the landscape bounced back up.

So, I guess this is actually a sea arch, although it's now inland.

It is, it is. It's a perfect, beautiful sea arch.

If you can imagine this place 10,000, 12,000

years ago and the waves would have been boiling through here

and eroding out this arch.

But of course, the original structure is a fault,

so the rocks have

been broken and you can just see that faultline up there.

And so, the sea has exploited the kind of weakness of the rock

and formed this arch.

It's tremendous, absolutely tremendous.

If you think about the power of that sea, a glacial sea,

a post-glacial sea, it would have come charging through here.

It would have been an amazing place to be a few thousand years ago.

John, we've talked a lot about the far distant past

and how it has affected us today.

-Can you cast your mind forward, maybe a million, or several million, years...

-Gosh.

..and give us an idea of what things here might look like then?

That's a, that's a very difficult question.

Looking far ahead, a million years from now, this will be a very different place.

The climate is changing.

Geologically, of course, a million years is relatively short-term.

When you think the age of the Earth is 4,600 million years,

so a million years is relatively short-term.

But the changes we're seeing, the rapid environmental

climatically driven change on Earth, means places like this

beautiful lush wood, probably won't exist in a million years.

Well see a very different landscape.

'That really is a sobering thought.'

For now, though, my roads less travelled take me

west to a wonderful island that's a firm favourite of mine - Lismore.

I want to let you into a wee secret.

I'm doing this journey in a slightly different way

because the west coast of Scotland is

so indented with sea lochs, island-studded, a very, very rough seaboard.

And I want to reach some of these little places that would be

quite difficult to reach if I was walking.

Some of those roads less travelled. And I should tell you something else.

For years and years I've been a passionate campervanner

and this is my pride and joy.

This is my mobile bothy. The car that thinks it's a 5-star hotel.

And some kind people here in Lismore have suggested

I park up for the night on this verge,

where I can gaze across at the wonderful peaks on Morvern.

I tell you,

you'd be hard pressed to get a view like this from a hotel bedroom.

One of the great advantages of a campervan is the fact

that you can carry other modes of transport with you.

And on this journey, I've brought my bike.

I kind of got into cycling a number of years ago

and I've enjoyed some pretty good trips.

I've cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats, I've cycled through

France from the English Channel down to the Mediterranean.

But I'm not going to do anything nearly as ambitious as that today.

I'm just going to have a gentle peddle around this beautiful island.

In exploration mode, I think, just to see what I can find.

HE HUMS A TUNE

Lismore is ten miles long by one mile wide

and it's not entirely flat either.

It's one of the most fertile of all our islands in Scotland

and in actual fact the name's a dead giveaway.

Lismore, it means the big garden, which suggests that people have been

growing things here since the people who actually named these islands.

And there's no doubt that there is a green, peaceful feel to the place,

this low-lying island in Loch Linnhe, surrounded and protected

and almost watched over by the big mountains of the mainland.

Oh, that looks interesting. I think I'll go and investigate.

I think this is the point where I have to dump the bike and walk.

BIRDS CHIRP

I've always had a real fascination with brochs,

largely because nobody seems very certain what they were for.

Many historians would claim that brochs like this one were

built for defensive purposes, that people living outside were all coming

here to put the barricades up, if you like, whenever there was an attack.

But there's another school of thought that says

they were probably the home of a chief or a lord.

They're fascinating.

If you think of it, this thing originally was 15 metres tall.

15 metres, that's 50 feet.

The walls are three metres wide

and in between two walls there's a passageway, a passageway that circles

right round and gradually increases in height until you get to the top.

They're fantastic places and this is a great example of a broch.

Built 2,000 years ago. And a number of years ago,

some archaeologists found a Roman brooch in here which

they believe was left in the foundations as a gift to the gods.

'On my wee bike trip through Lismore, I can't help

'but think this must be a rather idyllic place to live.'

Woohoo!

'It's an island and that's attractive in itself

'but it's an island very close to the mainland.'

It's green and there's a lovely soft quality about the place that

I find really quite attractive.

Indeed, 200 years ago, there were almost 2,000 people

living here, with 40 different industries -

farming, shoe making, dressmaking, smithying,

all the industries that you need for a vibrant society.

But then there was a long, slow decline in population right

up to the present day.

But there are signs, over the past few years, that the

numbers are rising gradually and I suspect that the future,

the outlook for Lismore, is pretty good.

Argyll has some of the roughest and rockiest terrain in Scotland.

It's an area dominated by long peninsulas, scattered islands

and narrow lochs.

It is quite simply a delight to drive through this part of our country.

I'm heading north to Glencoe but before I get there,

I want to stop off for a wee bike run.

There's a fantastic new route that's just been opened,

that goes all the way from Campbeltown to Inverness, it's called the Caledonian Way.

So I'm going to stop there, get the bike out the back

and stretch the legs for a wee bit.

For many miles, this part of the route follows the former railway line

that once ran between Connel and the Ballachulish slate quarries.

It's peaceful, traffic free and, of course, there are very few gradients.

But most importantly, there are some great views out across Loch Linnhe.

I think I'm going to leave the cycle path at this point because I'm

quite keen to cycle up into the woods here in search of a memorial,

a memorial I've never actually found before but it commemorates

one of the most important events in post-Culloden Scottish history.

On the 14th May, 1751, Colin Campbell of Glenure, otherwise known

as the Red Fox on account of his ginger complexion, was carrying

out his factoring duties here in the Lettermore Woods near Ballachulish.

Suddenly, a single shot rang out and he fell from his horse, stone dead.

And one of his companions saw someone running off through the woods,

carrying a musket, and later identified that person

as Alan Breck Stewart, a well-known Jacobite sympathiser,

who had been heard to say he had it in for Colin Campbell.

Thus followed probably the biggest manhunt the Scottish Highlands

has ever seen.

Aha, now this is it, the memorial cairn to Colin Campbell of Glenure.

Wow.

But you know, we've never actually found out who the real murderer was.

Alan Breck Stewart made good his escape to France

and instead, a local man, Seumas a' Ghlinne, James of the Glen,

a Stewart, was apprehended and charged with the murder

of the Red Fox.

It was a difficult time in Scotland's history.

It was only five years after the Battle of Culloden and there had been

much enmity between the Hanoverian Campbells and the Jacobite Stewarts.

And it was rather unfortunate that James of the Glen was

the head of the local Stewart household.

He was taken to Inveraray and tried.

Tried by a jury comprising 15 men,

11 of those men were Campbells.

The judge was a Campbell.

He was found guilty and he was eventually

hanged on the gallows just where Ballachulish Bridge stands now.

While I'm largely following the less travelled roads

along the west coast of Scotland, I was tempted to come inland

through Glencoe, into the big hills and I'm quite keen

to walk up some less trodden paths up one of the hills here.

I'm not going to climb any of the big main Munros

but a wee hill called Beinn a'Chrulaiste.

It's a smashing wee hill in itself,

but it's also a finer viewpoint than any of the big mountains.

And I'm joining someone I first met over 30 years ago.

Dave Cuthbertson is an extraordinary individual.

He was one of the finest climbers in the history of Scottish mountaineering.

Today, he's an acclaimed photographer, capturing what

he describes as the infinite variety of Scotland's rock and mountains.

For three decades, Cubby, as he's universally known,

was at the cutting edge of the climbing scene, with a succession of

ground-breaking first ascents to his name, many of them here in Glencoe.

I've followed his progress over the years and I've always wondered

what made him such a talented all-round climber?

I didn't have a natural ability at all. I mean, I found it pretty scary.

You know? I had no idea what it was about.

Although I'd done lots of scrambles and all that came easily

and very naturally, climbing, actually, I found quite intimidating.

But...I don't know...curiously, I was bitten by this strange bug.

I was 13, I think, at the time and it was just a fantastic

pool of climbers and all we wanted to do was more, more, more.

At what point did you think, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,

"I want to do this as an occupation"?

I went to Dunkeld.

We used to hitch up after school but I ended up doing this one climb,

The Chute, it's called, and I ended up doing it by mistake.

I was looking for the easiest VS on the graded list of climbs

which featured in the back of the book

because VS was the top grade in those days.

I got, I'd got them mixed up.

I ended up doing the second hardest VS by mistake,

and I remember thinking it was a wee bit tricky

but psychology's a strange thing, isn't it?

Here I am, thinking I was doing the easiest

but actually, it was the second hardest.

The whole experience completely filled up my senses

and I just really wanted to, to do this again.

It's great being up here away above the jaws,

the entrance to Glencoe and the Buachaille, just right next to us,

it's almost so close you could touch it.

But this is a place you've made your home, Cubby. Why Glencoe?

Apart from it being a fantastic place to go climbing,

it made a lot of sense professionally too.

I think historically it's very important to me.

It is very much my spiritual home. I mean, it's a quirky place.

I mean...a lot of people think, "Oh, it's spoiled by the A82,"

but I kind of quite like that, that proximity to constant noise of the traffic.

It's so close but in many ways it's so far away.

Where else can you be climbing on the buttresses of the Buachaille

and Aonach Dubh, and there's the National Express heading from

Uig to Glasgow on a Friday afternoon?

You know, it's bizarre.

So, when did this metamorphosis take place,

of the rock climber into landscape photographer?

Well, I mean, I've always had a sort of interest.

I remember I bawled my eyes out

when I was a kiddie, having seen this Kodak Instamatic 110 camera

and I just thought it looked fantastic and my dad said he couldn't

afford it but he eventually gave in and he bought me this little camera.

The thing I remember more than anything is those fantastic

day breaks, et cetera, when you're sitting there holding the ropes

with your mate for hours on end and looking out to the landscape

and just thinking it would be wonderful to do that justice.

I didn't have a clue what I was doing, to be quite honest,

but what I did have, I had a vision of what I wanted to capture.

What was that vision?

It's a really interesting question, because, I think...

I think I see my photography now, both as an landscape photographer

and a climbing photographer, as a retrospective of those early days

pitted against the elements of Scotland's mountains, really.

And it was trying to recapture some of these amazing

memories that I have, of the snow and ice climbs or the rock climbs

and the landscape that they're in

and the climber in that landscape, as well.

When you come to a place like this,

what are the things that you're looking for?

This landscape, taking in the Buachaille,

Buachaille Etive Baeg, Bidean, Stob Coire nan Lochan,

I thought was just a lovely vista.

Curiously, it wasn't just the composition and the landscape,

it was the contents of the mountain itself.

The Buachaille is a mountain that really speaks to me.

It's one where I climbed a lot and have very strong feelings for.

Quite often, putting that composition together, I think

about some of those early days climbing,

pitted against the elements, before I finally press the shutter.

They are merely subconscious thoughts.

I don't expect other people to see those elements

in my compositions, but they're there when I take the picture.

Cameron, do you want to be in my picture?

-How's that?

-One foot in front of the other.

Create a bit of space between your legs. Yeah.

-Hold the tummy in!

-I was just going to say, the belly looks...

-It's in profile at the moment. I'll just go for this now.

-OK.

That's quite nice, actually.

Okey doke. Shall we just leave it at that?

My journey has taken me to the islands of Luing, Seil and Lismore.

I've explored the tumbled Argyll landscape

and now the splendour of Glencoe, but it's time to move on.

There's a short drive on the A82, surely one of the most crowded roads in the Highlands,

before heading west across Loch Linnhe.

Well, another day, another glorious day, I have to say. And another ferry.

I'm going across to Ardgour, because I'm really keen to keep

the roads that we're travelling, to the less travelled roads,

so it's always exciting going over on this Corran ferry,

because it's just like going to an island, really.

Good morning, how are you? Good.

-That's £8.

-OK, thank you very much.

-There we go, sir, thank you.

-Thank you very much.

-Have you got some nice weather for us?

-Well, we thought we would.

It'd be rude not to.

It's lovely to leave the A82 behind us.

It's such a busy road, these days.

I'm going across the ferry here to Ardgour.

It's like coming into a place of older times where

things are a bit slower and a bit quieter.

Thanks now, Jess. See you later, bye-bye.

This is a special part of Scotland

and there's much I want to explore, so, I've got a busy schedule.

First, though, there's one appointment

I've been looking forward to for a long, long time.

I'm off to meet someone who is celebrating 60 years

at the very top of his profession,

a man who is genuinely a legend in his own lifetime.

And I think I might need this with me.

Fergie MacDonald is a child of Acharacle and during

an illustrious career, he's been both a gamekeeper and a poacher,

a physical education instructor, a clay shooting champion,

to name just a few.

He's also proud of his historical knowledge of this area,

but he is best known as an outstanding accordionist.

He started playing pure Scottish dance music but in the mid '60s,

he broke away from this to create a new genre of ceilidh dance.

He's now universally known as the Ceilidh King.

But his accordion playing started almost by accident.

I was a late, late starter.

I was in Fort William High School, secondary school.

And I got a most horrible infection in my eyes called conjunctivitis.

My eyes were closed and it was a year off school then.

You couldn't do any swatting, as it was called,

because you couldn't read.

Dad, who was a postman... And his biggest wage, probably,

was about £2.50 a week.

He sent away to Forbes, Dundee, and he got me an accordion,

a wee Double-Ray, it was called.

And I remember the price of the accordion was £12.

From there on, totally self-taught.

In terms of the landscape and the culture,

how influential have these things been in your music?

Totally, I'd say.

The lochs, the bens, the glens, the woodlands, the burns,

the rivers, the sea, it's all happening here.

Fergie's music is inspired by this landscape,

but there is a downside to living here. He never learned to read music.

I've never learned in my life, but then the disadvantage is,

you get thrown onto a show somewhere and at the rehearsals,

the star singer comes along with a briefcase.

"Now, now, now," he said.

"I'll do Westering Home and the Bonnie Banks Of Loch Lomond.

"Here's your music. It's on E flat. You can just..."

You don't know what he's talking about.

That was a big disadvantage. I had to rely on members of the band.

"What's he saying? How does he want us to start?"

"Do-do-do-do-do."

"All right, fine. How does he want us to end?" And that was it.

You've become a champion of ceilidh, ceilidh music.

What is the difference between ceilidh music

and what we'd understand as Scottish dance band music?

When I went to study in Glasgow,

the Scottish country dancing music was really at its height,

but it's so regimented, the music is predictable... Regimented.

Can you give me an example of the two styles?

There's always a chord.

-Very regimental, predictable, strict.

-Strict beat.

You go on to my kind of music now. They are both...

Strathspeys, by the way, but...

Uninhibited music.

After two or three years, the BBC, who I got on very well with,

but they did not approve of my style of playing at all,

so it was a football match, you could say, I was red-carded.

-Why didn't they approve of ceilidh music?

-Off!

Because it wasn't in keeping with the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society,

all these kind of things.

-And was there an element of snobbery about it?

-We think so.

The ceilidh music, as I see it, is everybody's music.

The whole village goes and gets up and hoddles about the floor

doing a Highland... or a Strip The Willow something like that.

No holds barred.

That is not the case with the Scottish country pump song

and sashes and all that kind of stuff.

I would say it's a class distinction comes into it.

I'd love to have a wee tune with you. It would be absolutely brilliant.

We've recently been on Lismore and one of my favourite tunes,

I think you are the first person I heard play this many years ago.

-Leaving Lismore.

-Leaving Lismore.

-I've got my Irish bouzouki.

I've heard how it sounds, but I reckon we're going to

break into new ground here.

We might be banned from everywhere in the world.

-Shall we give it a wee go?

-Yeah.

So here we are at the beginning of last winter, I promised I'd

try and teach myself the Irish bouzouki,

so I can pluck out a couple of wee tunes now and it's a real

thrill to play with the legendary, the iconic Fergie MacDonald.

We'll see what this sounds like.

THEY PLAY

-Thank you very much. Maybe form a band, eh?

-Go on the road full-time.

That's a great offer, but I think I'd better stick to the day job.

It's time to go outdoors again and I'm keen to share with you what

I think is one of the really special places on this wild peninsular.

Somewhere with a rather unusual history,

one which may have its roots in marital strife.

They said that back in the mid-14th century, John MacDonald

from Islay, who was the first Lord of the Isles, divorced his wife.

In response, she built a castle for herself right here in Moidart

and that was the beginning of the dominance of the Clanranalds.

Castle Tioram stands on its own island, Eilean Tioram.

Tioram, incidentally, is a generic word for an island

accessible at low tide.

Thankfully, we're in luck today.

At low tide, this shingle strand is just a lovely place to be.

There's the smell of seaweed, the sea thrift all around

and the silences occasionally pierced by the call of the oystercatcher.

I'm tempted to linger here for a while

and just imagine Clanranald's galley out in the bay being

prepared for the voyage out to his other property in South Uist.

It's a romantic place.

It also has a very bizarre history.

In 1715, Alan Moore of Moidart, left here to go

and join the Old Pretender on the Braes O' Mar in Deeside.

The first Jacobite rebellion.

He'd had a premonition that he would never return here,

so he instructed his factor, Roderick MacDonald,

to burn the place down as soon as he left and that's what happened.

Within a few hours, the place was a blackened shell,

but by coincidence, on exactly the same day, his other castle

at Ormiclate on South Uist, was also burnt to the ground

and no-one knows why.

I just wonder if it was a sign,

a sign of the ultimate failure of the Jacobite cause.

I've never actually been in here before.

Every other time I've been to this castle,

the gates have been closed and bolted

but someone has left the gate open this time and kindly

left some hard hats, just in case of falling masonry, so,

I should put one on.

Wow, it really is impressive.

You know, there's only one thing better than exploring mountains

and that's exploring old castles.

It takes me back to my childhood and this is a cracker.

You can see in this tower here, there were three different levels

and you can see where the beams would've

slotted into the masonry to support the floors and there's

evidence of a couple of fireplaces, the hearths in each of the rooms.

You know, this place is just full of wee darkened rooms

and eerie passages. It's brilliant.

I can well understand why the present owner wanted to turn

it into a family home but that's unlikely to happen

because I think there's been various planning difficulties.

But to be honest, I think I probably prefer it as it is, as a fine,

mysterious old ruin.

The vast majority of the people who visit Castle Tioram simply

turn round and go back the way they came, but in actual fact

the castle is only the beginning of what, I think, is probably

the most sensational short walk you'll find anywhere in Scotland.

This super little stroll is known locally as the silver walk,

not on account of the silver colour of the rocks or the

silver birches that grow so abundantly here.

But because when the workmen were building this path, at the end

of the 19th century, they discovered a horde of silver Elizabethan coins,

so it's well worth keeping your eye on the ground as you walk along.

Mind you head.

Early Christian missionaries knew this area well.

In the seventh century, St Adamnan, who was the first biographer of Columba,

travelled here and noted that the salmon in the River Shiel,

that's the river that flows down into Tioram Bay,

were the biggest he'd ever seen anywhere.

And the oak trees that grow in the woodland here, were used to

build the monastery on the holy island of Iona.

It's quite interesting that those trees were probably

the parents or the grandparents of the trees that are growing

here today.

Most hill walkers tend to associate the Rough Bounds,

with the peninsular of Knoydart.

But in actual fact, the Rough Bounds extend all the way from Loch Sunart

in Moidart, north to Loch Hourn in Knoydart.

And while I'm standing above this rather nice

bay in Loch Moidart, I could be standing above a similar

bay in Loch Hourn or Loch Nevis or one of the Knoydart lochs.

They all share this lovely sense of wildness,

this sense of unspoiled, remote wildness.

It's quite the extraordinary.

I've come across this old township and yet there's absolutely nothing

on the Ordnance Survey map that indicates that it's here.

It's really strange.

I suspect it's a cleared village,

because quite a number of the townships and settlements

in this area were cleared in 1845 by the landowner of the time,

Alexander MacDonald, who hoped

that bringing in the sheep would fund his rather extravagant lifestyle.

The sheep didn't, in actual fact,

and it wasn't long before the sheep were gone, as well.

So, we've had the people, we've had the sheep

and they've been replaced by the ubiquitous bracken.

You know, it's a sad story, a sad story that could be

multiplied 1,000 times throughout the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

I've travelled 30-odd miles north to another stunning

area of the West Highlands.

I've come to Arisaig but I'm planning to explore not the land, but the sea.

The wonderful thing about a campervan, of course, is you can travel around

with everything you need for your journey,

for your little adventure and, obviously, I've got my accommodation here,

but I've also got all my hiking gear and, of course,

the famous Irish bouzouki.

On the back, I can carry a bike and in this case, my mountain bike and

normally I'd love to carry a canoe on this,

but because this is an elevating roof, it makes it quite

difficult to carry a canoe, so, instead, I've got a pack raft.

These blows up into a fairly effective boat.

It's only 5lbs. You can carry it in a rucksack or a bike

and it's hard to believe that in this package, is a seagoing boat

that you can cross bays or use down rivers and I'm hoping to show you

in a few moments, just how effective it can be.

And I want to show it off to an expert.

Lizzie Benwell is originally from Ayrshire.

Once she caught the kayaking bug, she's never looked back.

This is the blow-up bag, so you don't need any special tools.

If there's a wee breeze blowing, you can actually catch it in the bag.

It's quite clever.

She spent ten years in France leading expeditions down the Ardeche Gorge,

but the draw of Scotland was too great and with her partner, Tristan,

she settled in this paddler's paradise.

This is a seascape of sparkling water, white sandy beaches

and hundreds of small islands or skerries.

It's so dramatic, so everything is so changeable.

You can paddle out one night and it's flat calm and the water is just

like glass and then you can put your tent up

and wake up the next day and you've got wind and you've got rain

and you've got the mountains and mist and they appear and disappear.

It's quiet, so you can come up here and you can journey

for five or six days and meet very few people

and have these amazing places to yourself, really.

-This is lovely.

-Gorgeous, isn't it?

-There's a seal.

There's a lot of seals around.

There is lots, isn't there.

-Did you meet your husband through kayaking?

-I did, yes.

One of my first seasons in the South of France in the Ardeche,

and he was working as a kayak guide there, as well.

It was ideal because we both do the exact same things so we can

both work together as guides and, I guess, in our free time,

if we can manage to get four or five days off,

we'll definitely head out to the small isles or to a different

group of islands and go for an explore and an adventure.

Sounds like you guys live and work kayaks.

We do.

Whether it's sea kayak or an open canoe or a riverboat,

we do like to be on the water.

You're not going to tell me you were married on your kayak, are you?

No, although a lot of my friends did think it was going to happen.

I think there was a few bets going on.

We did get married close to the water and they said,

"When are they going to appear?"

Everyone was checking behind their backs on the water

thinking that we were both going to arrive in a canoe,

but we surprised them all and we didn't, actually.

-What were your wedding presents?

-Yeah, we got two sea kayaks.

How did you know?

-Shall we land straight in there?

-We can do.

-Yes, it's crystal clear.

-Wonderful.

-Time for a brew?

-I think it might be.

One of the great things about kayaking, is you can carry

a lot more with you than you can in a rucksack, if you're backpacking.

-You can get nice...

-Nice snacks.

-Nice lunches, like this one.

This is great. Nice bit of smoked venison. Look at that.

That is all part of it, to come onshore like this,

but a tent up for the night, in an isolated place.

There is something very special about that.

Yeah, you've got the whole place to yourself

and a whole evening to chill out and watch the sun go down.

Light your fire or whatever.

You're young, you're setting out on a career that many people

would say was quite a precarious career. How difficult is it?

You can make a living from it, for sure.

You're running a business that depends, really, on the weather,

so a lot of days, you just can't go out,

especially if you're guiding beginners.

There's lots of days in Scotland where the rain comes in

and the wind comes in and it's maybe not the most pleasant of days,

but you just have to get on with it.

Do you ever think, "I wish I had a nice job in a nice warm office"?

Very rarely.

There's the occasional day when it's blowing a hooley and pouring

with rain and I think, "It would be quite nice if I was able to stay

"indoors today." But 99% of the time, I'm more than happy to be outside.

Once you've got the right kit, as well, once you've got decent

jackets and hoods, you can just hide away from it, anyway.

Your legs are in the kayak, as well, so you don't notice it.

It might seem like a strange question,

but is there anywhere in the world that can compare

with the west coast of Scotland for kayaking?

When you get the weather here, it's just the best

place in the world to paddle, really.

There's places that compare with the likes of Norway,

the Lofoten Islands. But, yeah, Scotland, it is beautiful.

Such a stunning, varied coastline with so many places to explore.

I couldn't agree more.

My journey up the West Highlands has shown off the amazing variety

and splendour of our landscape.

Ahead of me lies a lesser-known part of the Isle of Skye,

the glorious mountains of Kintail.

The beautiful Loch Maree and the breathtaking

scenery of Torridon, before I reach my final destination above Ullapool.

So, I hope you'll join me for the next part of my journey,

along these roads less travelled.