Carneddau and Skomer Weatherman Walking


Carneddau and Skomer

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You might think that these remote Welsh hills are off limits for

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disabled people,

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but think again.

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Oi, wait for me!

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My walks this week have the "Oooh" factor - water, wildlife

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and wicked views - what more could you want?

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This week I'll be island-walking

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and bird-watching on Pembrokeshire's stunning Skomer Island, but first,

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I'm heading north to the Carneddau Mountains to see what's

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involved in getting away from it all when you're a wheelchair user.

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Here in North Wales we're surrounded by loads of wild

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and challenging walks but for some people their biggest challenge

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is something most of us take for granted - walking.

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My guide is Terry Taylor and for over 30 years

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he worked as a British Mountain Guide,

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climbing in amazing locations all over the world.

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But in 2009, a massive stroke changed his life forever.

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Hi, Terry, great to meet you.

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Hello, Derek, nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you.

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-All good, I hope.

-Mostly.

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-Mostly.

-Yeah.

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Well, it's great to be here at the foot of the Carneddau Mountains,

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-looks a bit wild and rough up there.

-It is, yes.

-Forgive me for asking,

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but how are you going to manage it?

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With some difficulty, I expect, but I do have a secret weapon

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-I'm going to rely on. Come this way and I'll show you.

-OK.

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Without Celia I wouldn't be able to do anything.

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-Derek, this is my wife, Celia.

-Hi, nice to meet you, Celia.

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-Hello, Derek.

-This gets me everywhere I want to be...to get

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or everywhere I can get.

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-And it's sturdy. I've dropped it over a cliff once.

-Really?

-Yes.

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It's very important for us disabled people to have something like this,

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cos it enables us to get up in the mountains on long

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and challenging tracks, we wouldn't otherwise be able to access.

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-You couldn't be without it?

-I couldn't, no.

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Along with Celia, he also couldn't be

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without his amazing support network and today he's joined

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by friend and fellow mountain guide, Malcolm.

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-So you're one of Terry's right-hand men?

-Yeah, I just come along

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to pick up the bits in case he turns it over,

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which has not been unknown. He's a bit adventurous at times.

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So, shall we get going?

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-Yeah, yeah.

-Let's do that.

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OK, let's head for the hills, eh?

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Going for a ramble in the Welsh hills needs preparation,

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but for Terry it's vital that he has the right tools, support

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and supplies to help him get where he wants to go.

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And today Terry's taking me

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along an ancient track, crossing the Carneddau Mountains in Snowdonia.

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Starting high above the village of Abergwyngregyn,

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on the north coast of Gwynedd,

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our ramble follows part of the old Roman Road from Caernarfon to

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Chester, with spectacular views across the Menai Strait.

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Stopping to hunt for a Roman board game, we finish at Bwlch y Ddeufaen

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"Pass of the Two Stones",

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before retracing our tracks all the way back to the car park.

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It's a round trip of just under five and a half miles.

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So, have you been on this track many times before, Terry?

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Oh, yes, cos it's slightly harder, the step up from the dead easy ones,

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which can get a bit boring if you do them too much.

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-You like a bit of a challenge?

-I do, yes.

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Like many disabled people, Terry's disability came later in life

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and totally out of the blue.

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So, Terry, can you tell me what happened?

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It was on New Year's Day, 2009, I had a stroke...

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..and I hadn't even been celebrating.

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I never smoked, I only drank to excess on very rare occasions

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and I was as fit as I could be for my age, 66.

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So did you know what was happening to you?

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Did you know it was a stroke?

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I suspected it was but I didn't want to admit it, even to myself.

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So the stroke changed your whole life because you were so fit

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and active, always out on the mountains.

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Yes, instantaneously, but not just for me,

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for my wife Celia as well.

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I really thought I was going to make a miracle recovery in record time

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but of course it didn't happen.

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You must've thought you'd never be able to get out and about

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into the mountains again.

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First of all, I really didn't care whether I lived or died.

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You know, cos it was so traumatic for me.

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I didn't care for some weeks...

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..about that.

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But through the support of his family and friends,

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Terry eventually found the strength to carry on,

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and soon he was back up in the mountains.

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# When life kicks you down when you least expect it

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# When life kicks you out when you've got no home

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# Sometimes to test, to test if you're strong

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# So, follow your heart. #

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-The weather's improving.

-Yes.

-Some blue sky.

-Thank you, Derek.

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-I arranged it just for us.

-Yes, I know, I knew you had contacts.

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How far does this track go?

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To Chester, eventually.

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It linked a line of Roman forts,

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Roman way stations from Chester to Segontium.

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Segontium was a major Roman fort on the outskirts of Caernarfon,

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built to control the local tribes

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and keep hold of the harvest from Anglesey's breadbasket.

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But unlike the marching Romans, I prefer to go at more leisurely pace.

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# We're on a road to nowhere

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# Come on inside. #

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Oh, there's a little ford, look. I love going through fords.

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-You're not going to splash my feet, are you?

-No.

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People have lived and farmed up here since prehistory

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and it's still a popular route today.

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Over there, you can see Puffin Island, which a few years ago

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was infested by rats, and the RSPB and the Nature Conservancy cleared

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it of rats, and now puffins are nesting there again.

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-You do get some great views from up here.

-You sure do.

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You do indeed, yeah.

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With those views over the Irish Sea and Anglesey,

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I can see why getting up here is worth the effort.

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Have you ever suffered from a flat battery?

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No, no, slow punctures, yeah.

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And since discovering what his all-terrain mobility scooter can do,

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he's now passionate about encouraging

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other disabled people to give one a go and get off the beaten track.

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I belong to an organisation called Disabled Ramblers Association

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and most of the people on that use them, and Disabled Ramblers

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have about seven or eight ones, which can be loaned for rambles.

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They're expensive,

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so Terry helps people try before they buy, organising safe

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and accessible rambles in this corner of North Wales.

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So how do they react when they first come up here?

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Well, most of them are absolutely amazed at how beautiful it is

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and the scenery, what they can see, animals and birds

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and wild horses up here.

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They love it and then they want to go again and again and again!

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For more information about joining a disabled ramblers group,

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visit our website...

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Being up here gives you time to think and appreciate life, doesn't it?

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Oh, yeah, yeah, it does.

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What do you think of this, then, Derek? Look at all these ponies!

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-Beautiful, aren't they?

-They are.

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These Carneddau mountain ponies have been isolated up

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here for hundreds of years, making them completely wild

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and genetically unique from other British ponies.

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Henry VIII wanted them destroyed

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because they were too small to carry a knight in full armour!

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But today, thanks to the hill farmers working to protect them,

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they are thriving.

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It can get pretty rough up here,

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so imagine what it was like for the Romans

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building this road nearly 2,000 years ago.

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Did you ever wonder, Derek,

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what Roman soldiers did in their time off?

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-No.

-They used to play games, like board games on rock.

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I saw it once but I can't remember where it was.

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I know it was down there.

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OK, we'll go and have a look, shall we?

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-Just tell us if we're getting close or not.

-You're getting warmer.

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HE LAUGHS

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-That's it?

-No.

-No, OK.

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Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack, Terry's got us

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looking for a stone...on a mountain!

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You don't need to hold hands.

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Am I getting closer, Terry?

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-I think you're closer than I am. Hey, look at this.

-We found it, Terry.

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Terry, we found it!

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So what was this game, then?

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Well, this is a game called Nine Men's Morris.

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There are two players involved and they have nine pieces each

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and they had to line up three of their men to make a mill,

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and once you got a mill that was a score.

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And with each mill, an opponent's man was taken,

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until a player was down to just two men, game over.

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And the Romans would have played it sat here, rested and enjoyed

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the wonderful views.

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-Right, let's get away.

-I bet Terry's missing us.

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Yes, I'm sure he is, yes.

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-Well, we found it, Terry.

-Well done.

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It's amazing to think it survived that long!

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Off we go!

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MUSIC: Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf

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Looks a bit tricky here, Terry.

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Well, it's a bit more interesting, if that's what you mean?

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You get a bit of a buzz?

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Then I put my legs over the top there, like that.

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It seems Terry's whole life has been spent pushing limits

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and living on the edge.

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Room for a little one, Derek.

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-Good grief, that's not you, is it?

-It is, yes.

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And this is on Llanberis Pass, a crag which gets ice on every year

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and I was always the first to climb it. The ice here is only about half

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-an inch thick.

-Yeah, it looks like you're just in midair.

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-Did you have any accidents at all?

-Yes, I had a major accident in 1965.

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My feet slipped off a hold and I ended up falling for 350ft.

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So I was travelling pretty fast when I hit the ground.

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-You're lucky to be alive!

-I am lucky to be alive. I broke a lot of bones,

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both legs, my jaw, cracked pelvis, cracked vertebrae.

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Yes, it was very serious.

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Blimey! It didn't put you off?

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Oh, yes, I didn't want to know about climbing for some time after that,

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but when I realised I was going to survive, I thought I might as well

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give it a go.

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-Get back out there again.

-Cos I still had the boots.

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And I went back to climbing again just over a year later.

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-Well, that's a real testament that after...

-To my stupidity?

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..after going through all that and surviving, that you went back on to

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the mountains and... What sort of reaction do you get now from people

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that you're out and about on the hills again?

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A normal reaction is people say, "You shouldn't be doing that," or

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"You won't be able to do that,"

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but that's even more of a spur to me to do it, to do those things.

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Good on you.

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MUSIC: Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

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Spending time on this ramble with Terry has been truly inspiring.

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He's overcome so much and shown me what a lot of willpower

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and a bit of WHEEL-power can do.

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And from here, it's downhill all the way back to the car park!

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# Ain't no valley low enough

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# Ain't no river wide enough

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# To keep me from getting to you! #

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And if you fancy trying this or another of our walks,

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go to our website...

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It's got detailed route information

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and walking maps for you to print off,

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or you download it onto your tablet and take it with you.

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# Living on an island

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# Looking at another life

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# Waiting for my friend to come. #

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This is a place I've always wanted to come to, Skomer Island.

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It's got hundreds and thousands of seabirds and I'm meeting

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the wildlife warden who's going to show me why this place is so special!

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To get to Skomer you have to catch a boat from Martin's Haven.

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The trip takes about 15 minutes and only runs between the beginning

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of April and the end of September, when the weather's good.

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You can't book in advance, so make sure you turn up early.

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Skomer Island lies just a mile off the south coast of Pembrokeshire.

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The walk starts where the boat drops you off,

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before you head inland to the old farmhouse.

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Then it's a short walk north to the Garland Stone to

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look at the seals, before following the clifftop path to Skomer Head.

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Next is the island's best

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wildlife spectacle, The Wick,

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with its enormous seabird colony

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and thousands of puffins.

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Finally, it's on to the remains

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of an Iron Age settlement,

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before catching the boat to the mainland.

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All in all, a gentle walk

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of just under three and a half miles.

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My guide is Birgitta Bueche, the wildlife warden for Skomer.

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Bee is originally from Germany

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and has lived on the island for three years with her husband, Ed.

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Her job is to monitor and protect the birds

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and to look after visitors.

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-Hi, Bee.

-Hello, Derek.

-Lovely to meet you.

-Yeah, lovely to meet you too.

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So, tell me, what's it like living on Skomer?

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Absolutely stunning, amazing place to be.

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A real privilege to be here with the amazing amount of seabirds

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and the scenic views, so, yeah, really good.

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Now, I don't know much about bird-watching

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-but you're going to give me a few tips.

-Absolutely!

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I'll show you some birds and we've got these binoculars for you,

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-so you'll need those.

-Thank you. Shall we go?

-Yeah, absolutely!

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You don't have to walk far before you get your first close up

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wildlife experience.

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Well, it's incredible, Bee, we're surrounded by puffins.

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Yeah, North Haven is a really good place for them,

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so you've got some sitting down there on the rocky outcrops.

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Yeah, we've got about 4,500 puffins breeding in this bay

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and all in all, about 21,000 on Skomer.

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So we're really lucky they're doing really well here.

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They're really cute, aren't they, with their orange-coloured beaks.

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Yeah, they're absolutely amazing. That's why people love them,

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-they're just like little clowns.

-Are they quite friendly?

-To be honest,

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they're quite feisty birds and the researchers, if they catch them to

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put rings and geo-locaters on the birds, they often come back with

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bloody hands. They've got really sharp claws and really sharp beaks.

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-They've got to be careful.

-They know how to defend themselves

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but they do look extremely cute.

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It's lovely to see them.

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Yeah, it's great, it's a real privilege again.

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Skomer has lots of well-mapped paths to follow

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but you have to stick to them.

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The island is honeycombed with burrows,

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with thousands of rabbits, puffins

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and other seabirds living underground.

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Stray off the paths and you could hurt yourself and the wildlife.

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-So what are these buildings here?

-So this is a farm, what we call

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the Old Farm and nowadays it's a hostel where people can stay

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overnight, staff accommodation and volunteer accommodation.

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But it used to be a proper running farm. Until the 1940s, there were

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livestock here, they were growing potatoes, but actually the farming

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goes back many, many years.

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5,000 years ago there was already farming here,

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with a population of around 200 people living

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here in the Bronze Age.

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And we've got amazing Bronze Age and Iron Age remains on the island,

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one of the best in Britain, apparently.

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These days, how many visitors do you get here?

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On a good day we get up to 300 day-trippers and, all in all,

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throughout the year, we get about 15,000 people coming

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on day trips and we've got about 2,000-2,5000 people

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and staying in our hostel.

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If you want to go and see similar seabirds species and a similar

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number of seabirds, you have to go, like, up to Shetland

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and it's a long boat trip.

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I get seasick, I've done it.

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It's not very pleasant, but down here, ten minutes by boat and

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just off the coast of Pembrokeshire, so it's really accessible.

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Probably one of the most accessible seabird colonies on the planet,

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I would say.

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So where are you from, Bee? Because that's not a Welsh accent.

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No, it's not, no, I'm German. I grew up in the southern part of Germany,

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-so quite far away from the sea, actually.

-So what brought you here?

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My husband, Ed. Well, in those days we weren't married, but I came to

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Britain, first to Norfolk,

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and worked for Norfolk Wildlife Trust up in

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Norfolk and then we decided we would like to live and work together,

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so we applied for the Skomer job and got it and that was three years ago.

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So we've been here ever since.

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Not sure if I could live on an island but there are some amazing views.

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So where are we now?

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We're just coming to the Garland Stones, so that's a nice place

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to sit down and we can have a look out to sea and see whether we can

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spot some porpoise or maybe some seals.

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Is that Ramsey Island over there?

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Yeah, that's Ramsey, it's our neighbours.

0:20:140:20:17

Have a look down there and there's a group of seals.

0:20:170:20:20

-There's quite a few of them.

-Yeah!

0:20:200:20:23

The big one, the massive big one lying on its side, that's a male and

0:20:240:20:28

then the little ones are youngsters, and the medium-sized ones,

0:20:280:20:34

especially the spotty ones, those are the females.

0:20:340:20:37

We get them also in North Haven, they're often quite a lot in

0:20:370:20:40

North Haven and they do funny things like go and lie and in our boat.

0:20:400:20:44

We've got a little inflatable boat, Zodiac, and we had a big massive

0:20:440:20:48

bull seal lying in there a few years back, so it's good fun to watch them

0:20:480:20:51

in North Haven as well.

0:20:510:20:53

-Well, the weather's changed again.

-It has, yes.

-I bet you've seen some

0:21:050:21:09

-rough weather during your stay here.

-Yeah, absolutely, in autumn time

0:21:090:21:13

we get gale force 9s and stuff, so the chimneys rattle and

0:21:130:21:16

the roof rattles and there are days where you can hardly go outdoors

0:21:160:21:20

just because it's quite dangerous - you could be blown off a cliff.

0:21:200:21:24

So, yeah, and that's also one of the reasons why

0:21:240:21:27

we leave the island at the beginning of December, because it gets

0:21:270:21:31

really rough and we come back in March when the weather's better.

0:21:310:21:35

MUSIC: Weather With You by Crowded House

0:21:350:21:38

This is Skomer Head now and amazing scenery, very spectacular

0:21:460:21:51

scenery, I think, on Skomer.

0:21:510:21:53

On a nice summer day it actually looks like the Mediterranean.

0:21:530:21:57

Well, it doesn't feel very tropical today with this wind and drizzle.

0:21:570:22:01

No, not very nice today but we'll go and see the seabirds -

0:22:010:22:05

they don't mind a bit of wind and rain.

0:22:050:22:07

Luckily the wind and rain started to ease off, just as we reached

0:22:090:22:13

Skomer's most amazing wildlife spectacle, a kind of seabird city.

0:22:130:22:18

-Well, this is spectacular! What's it called?

-This is the Wick, so this

0:22:200:22:25

is our biggest sea cliff. It's a quarter of a mile long and it's

0:22:250:22:28

got lots and lots of seabirds on it.

0:22:280:22:30

So you've got the fulmars, which are little albatross,

0:22:300:22:33

you've got the kittiwakes, which are amazing little gulls.

0:22:330:22:36

They're the ones which you can hear in the distance.

0:22:360:22:38

They say their own name, they go, "Kittiwake, kittiwake!"

0:22:380:22:41

And then you've got the guillemots on there, 4,500 guillemots, and lots

0:22:410:22:44

of razorbills as well.

0:22:440:22:45

So they are just as amazing seabirds as puffins

0:22:450:22:48

and people should try and make an effort to see them as well.

0:22:480:22:52

That's amazing how close we can actually get to the puffins -

0:22:520:22:55

they come right up, don't they?

0:22:550:22:57

Of course, it's got our most accessible puffin colony on Skomer

0:22:570:23:00

and people love it here

0:23:000:23:02

because puffins are right next to the footpath.

0:23:020:23:05

Does that cause a problem with the visitors getting so close?

0:23:050:23:08

Yeah, a little bit. Sometimes we get 250-300 people on a day and they

0:23:080:23:13

line up here and they all want to take pictures, and puffins

0:23:130:23:17

can't get to their chicks any more to feed them

0:23:170:23:20

and you can see it's really, really fragile.

0:23:200:23:22

If a burrow collapses you'll end up squashing a bird, injuring a bird.

0:23:220:23:27

So, yeah, we try to get people to enjoy the rest of the island

0:23:270:23:30

just as much as the Wick, but it is a site that everybody loves

0:23:300:23:34

to come and visit.

0:23:340:23:35

It's great to watch them and how they exhibit all different behaviours.

0:23:520:23:56

You can see them billing, so the partners will be team-bonding,

0:23:560:23:59

they'll be billing and they've got this funny head-jerking and opening

0:23:590:24:03

of the beak when they're a bit annoyed with a neighbour, say.

0:24:030:24:07

They show a bit of aggression sometimes as well.

0:24:070:24:10

-A real spectacle.

-Absolutely, yeah.

0:24:100:24:12

I could have watched the puffins for hours,

0:24:140:24:16

but there are other things to watch on Skomer.

0:24:160:24:19

So this is one of the roundhouses we were talking about earlier.

0:24:190:24:22

In the Bronze Age and Iron Age there were people living on Skomer.

0:24:220:24:26

They had cattle and livestock on here and this is one of it.

0:24:260:24:30

They would have these roundhouses. The wall would have been the bottom

0:24:300:24:35

part of the house and on top would have been

0:24:350:24:38

a wooden structure with reed.

0:24:380:24:40

Yeah, it's really interesting, lots of archaeology going on Skomer.

0:24:400:24:43

Most people go to Skomer for the day, but if you book

0:24:510:24:54

in advance, you can stay overnight in the hostel on the island.

0:24:540:24:58

The reason is another extraordinary seabird called the Manx shearwater.

0:24:580:25:03

Unfortunately, you have to stay up really late to see them.

0:25:030:25:06

Bee, it's nearly midnight, I should be tucked up in bed having 40 winks.

0:25:090:25:14

What are we doing?

0:25:140:25:16

Well, we have to go out at night if we want to see the Manx shearwaters

0:25:160:25:19

coming back to the colonies, so that's what we'll do.

0:25:190:25:22

We'll go and see some. We can hear some already.

0:25:220:25:24

So why do they only come out at night?

0:25:240:25:26

So they're really, really clumsy on land.

0:25:260:25:29

Basically, can't properly walk, they have difficulties lifting off

0:25:290:25:32

and if they came in during the daytime then the gulls would

0:25:320:25:35

eat them, especially great black backed gulls - they know they're

0:25:350:25:38

defenceless and they go for them.

0:25:380:25:40

So the only way of being able to feed their chicks safely is to

0:25:400:25:44

come in when all the gulls are asleep.

0:25:440:25:46

-I think I can hear a few. Shall we go and see them?

-Yeah, go on, let's go.

0:25:460:25:50

First of all there was some other wildlife to get past.

0:25:540:25:58

So we've got to be really careful. It's a rainy night and there are

0:26:020:26:06

toads and frogs everywhere.

0:26:060:26:08

Just make sure you don't step on any.

0:26:080:26:10

There's one, for example.

0:26:100:26:12

-That's a toad, is it?

-That's a toad, yeah.

0:26:120:26:15

We get massive big frogs here. They're very amusing when they hop.

0:26:160:26:20

-I'd hate to step on one.

-No, it wouldn't be nice, would it?

0:26:200:26:24

-Oh, there he goes.

-There's one.

0:26:240:26:26

Frog.

0:26:320:26:33

There you've got your first Manx shearwater.

0:26:370:26:40

They just look really alien on land. I guess they feel alien on land

0:26:420:26:45

because they hardly spend any time on land, only when they're breeding,

0:26:450:26:48

otherwise they're out at sea all the time.

0:26:480:26:52

They've got lovely little beaks and they've got tube noses, so elongated

0:26:520:26:56

noses like the albatrosses have - same family like the albatrosses.

0:26:560:27:01

You can see how a gull can pick that up.

0:27:010:27:02

I mean, if you sit around like that...

0:27:020:27:04

SHE LAUGHS

0:27:040:27:06

-You're completely defenceless!

-Yeah, completely defenceless.

0:27:060:27:08

They'll just sit tight until we've left

0:27:080:27:10

and then he'll find his burrow to feed his chick.

0:27:100:27:13

The Manx shearwaters make a really odd sound.

0:27:130:27:17

CHUCKLING WHEEZY CALL

0:27:170:27:19

It's quite eerie as they fly around in the dark.

0:27:210:27:24

And Skomer has the most Manx shearwaters in the world?

0:27:270:27:30

Yeah, so it's 316,070 pairs,

0:27:300:27:33

which is the largest colony on the planet.

0:27:330:27:38

We have 50% of the world's population,

0:27:380:27:40

so lots and lots of birds.

0:27:400:27:42

They are very important, so if Skomer got rats on it or if there

0:27:420:27:46

was a big oil spill around Skomer this species could even go extinct.

0:27:460:27:51

Yeah, so really important.

0:27:510:27:53

The Manx shearwaters fly to Skomer across the South Atlantic,

0:27:550:27:58

some from as far away as the Falklands.

0:27:580:28:02

They can fly over five million miles in their lifetimes.

0:28:020:28:05

Watching the Manx shearwaters was one of the most unforgettable

0:28:070:28:11

wildlife experiences I've ever had.

0:28:110:28:14

Isn't it fantastic that an amazing island like Skomer lies just

0:28:140:28:18

a mile off the Welsh Coast?

0:28:180:28:20

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