Best foot forward.
What better way to explore our shore
than striding along its salty margin?
Nothing beats a coastal walk.
Thousands of miles of marked paths circle our shores.
And plenty of secret ones too.
I've certainly done the distance.
But I've never taken you on my favourite coastal walk. Until now.
'I'm heading to our last great wilderness.
'And the team are going that extra mile too.
'Andy attempts a walk above the water.'
And over that edge is a secret path
that's haunted my imagination for years.
What happens if I come off? Well, you've got big problems.
Ruth is tracking down Victorian treasure hunters.
Ladies who risked life and limb for ferns.
I've got my gathering pole, I've got my ladder,
all I've got to do now is reach that fern.
Coast newcomer and physicist Helen Arney explores
the secrets of a path built for pleasure, and terror.
It really feels like something is about to happen.
SHE SCREAMS I can see the sea!
SHE SCREAMS
Join us off the beaten track
as we explore secret paths to hidden treasure.
My secret path lies on the extreme edge, at Cape Wrath.
Here, the mainland's tallest sea cliffs keep visitors at bay.
In Cape Wrath's mysterious heart there are no roads,
cars, or people to drive them.
The only way to explore the isolated interior is on foot.
But glorious treasures await those willing to walk on the wild side.
I first took on Cape Wrath back in the '70s with my dad.
I was 18 and I was cutting my teeth on extreme adventures,
ready for isolation, ready for difficult challenges.
But that unpopulated wilderness out there had a surprise, a beach.
Not just any old beach, but the most beautiful beach I've ever seen.
I can't wait to show you what it's like.
I'm heading to Sandwood Bay,
but I'll begin on the other side of the cape.
After the ferry crossing
I'll hitch a ride on a road rarely travelled to the Lighthouse.
Then I'll tread my own path to my favourite beach,
a three-day adventure beginning on the tiny ferry.
Hi, John. Hi.
The cape feels like an island,
disconnected to the rest of Britain and the mainland, but it's so
remote that this is the easiest way of getting there, taking your ferry.
It's the main gateway, aye.
A lot of tourists think it's an island, you know.
What do you think it would have been like living out there?
It would be a hard life.
You'd need plenty of Scotch whisky about you I'd think at night,
to pass the nights.
The isolation of Cape Wrath doesn't only attract tourists.
Some ten years back I witnessed how the MOD seal off the cape
to create a live firing range for 1,000lb bombs.
Now I want to discover why this wild coast
was abandoned in the first place.
Once a handful of shepherds and their families
had crofts scattered across the cape.
To see what became of these coastal folk I'm with John Mackenzie,
one of the last to leave.
We're exploring the MOD site.
So this must be the edge of the range now.
It's the start of the range here, aye.
The barrier's up, so no shells flying around, no bombs dropping.
Aye, we're OK today. What's that?
Is that an old building, remains of a building?
That's the remains of the old school. Oh, is it?
Can we go and have a look? It's not very big.
No, got a photograph of it here.
Oh, aye.
I've never seen such a small school. It's like a garden shed. I know.
So that's the school, with four pupils in.
Four, is that how many children were here? HE LAUGHS
That's the guy from the ferry.
Wow. You can see where the front door was.
Four children, so four desks.
Four children, plenty bigger. NICK LAUGHS
No hiding at the back of class. No, no.
'These stones were the foundation of the community - the school.
'But it closed in 1947.'
When the school closed down, what did that mean for your family?
Well, we had to move to the mainland so I could go to school over there,
and probably that's the start of the end of people living here.
So the closure of the school was the end for a community living out here.
I would say so. I would say so.
Shortage of pupils meant the crofters' time was up.
But you can still walk in their footsteps.
John's father maintained their only road.
He looked after this road,
from the middle '20s to the middle '40s.
How long was the road? 11 miles.
What's it feel like to be walking on your father's road?
Aye, it's touching. Yeah?
I'm heading on into the heart of the cape
towards my coastal treasure,
saving my legs for later, I'm hitching a lift
to where the road runs out.
This might feel like the road to nowhere,
but in fact it goes all the way out over the moorlands to the
lighthouse here at Cape Wrath, my last contact with civilisation.
After that it's an eight-mile coast walk south through the wilderness,
a wilderness unlike any other in Britain.
But at the end of it there's a treasure,
a glittering diamond in the rough, Sandwood Bay. It's got a freshwater
loch and a beautiful river spilling out across the sands into the sea.
'The end of the road.
'I'm on my own, and it's a lonely location,
'even for a lighthouse.'
You're not likely to bump into too many people out here, but over
there at the lighthouse live the last two residents of Cape Wrath.
But who would chose to live in a place like this?
I'll discover what it's like to live here later.
But the splendid isolation of Scotland's Cape Wrath
doesn't suit everyone.
For easier going, seek out England's South West Coast Path.
Start hiking at Poole Harbour
and 630 miles of track unfold before you.
The tourist trail threading around our southernmost sea
is strung with pearls.
Natural wonders,
and man-made delights.
Today many walkers make a beeline for the golden sands.
But it wasn't always that way.
In the Victorian age, the craze wasn't for beaches
but for botany.
A particular type of plant fascinated collectors
who flocked to Lynmouth.
Ruth is in town to take a leaf out of the Victorians' book.
In the 19th century Devon was gripped by a strange epidemic,
with an equally strange name.
Pterodomania had taken hold of the town.
People were roaming the coastal paths wide-eyed with green fingers.
Devon was in the throes of fern fever.
We take these garden favourites for granted.
But surprisingly, 150 years ago fern mania
blossomed into an obsession for gentile Victorian ladies.
Fanatics grew ferns in glass cabinets,
and nurseries dedicated to the plants sprang up.
But the real action was in the wild warm climate of these Devon cliffs.
A generation of young women was drawn to this land of the ferns.
Sowing the seeds of this growing craze was a resident of nearby
Ilfracombe, Charlotte Chanter.
It's not the greatest of pictures, but she was never one
for sitting still to have her portrait taken, and it was her book,
Ferny Combes, that really inspired a legion of followers to abandon
the regular tourist track, and go on the path of fern enlightenment.
'Published in 1856, this slim volume spurred ladies on to leave
'their drawing rooms and walk this coast, fern collecting.
Why were Victorians so fond of fronds?
'Author Sarah Whittingham is sharing her wisdom.'
The Victorian age was the heyday of the amateur naturalist.
Fern-gathering parties were usually of mixed sexes,
and as Punch said, "The rarest species usually
"grow in the least frequented spots," so you and your companion can
disappear off into the hedgerow or round the corner...
Far away from the chaperone. Exactly. Exactly.
I love this picture because she's got caught in the brambles
and she's looking up really peeved at these two, and she's saying
"Please can you identify this fern for me," and she's like I can't...
Well, they're too busy flirting to take any notice of her.
Ferns and flirting again, yes, definitely.
This passionate pursuit was also caught up with sexual politics.
Botany in particular was very fashionable among women.
It was one of those areas
where you were allowed to be clever, wasn't it?
Exactly. Many women were writers of books on ferns,
and they were many of the early collectors.
'The freedom to study ferns help foster early feminism
'as women strode out on their own.'
We're taking a walk in their shoes,
and their skirts.
'Time to hitch up our petticoats and start fern foraging.
'Dressed for action,
'we are well-equipped to collect our quarry.'
You'd bring your baskets,
a nice narrow long fern trowel to really get in there
among the rocks and dig up a fern specimen, and if it's nice and small
you can put it in your vasculum, which is a tin collecting case.
If you're a rather unprincipled botanist you might be digging up
vast quantities of fern. There was one writer who actually
had to employ a man with a cart to take them home.
That's dedication...and despoliation of the countryside.
I'm afraid so, yes.
For the dedicated fern hunter
the passion didn't stop on the coastal path.
The fern lover could literally fill their home with ferns. Not just real
ones, but they could have images of ferns from carpets to chamber pots.
Teapot too, covered in ferns. Teapot's lovely.
Custard creams. They're a bit of a sight.
Custard creams were invented around 1908, and the pattern on them
represents fern crosiers, because ferns were so popular at the time.
And we've got a violinist here.
I mean, this isn't fern music as well, is it? It is, it is.
This is the Fern Waltz. You could have the Ferns Polka as well.
I'm liking it. It is addictive, isn't it?
You catching fern fever? I think I might be.
Good!
But off-the-shelf souvenirs
wouldn't satisfy the really serious collector.
The damp, salty sea cliffs of Devon concealed the much sought-after
sea spleenwort. It drove fern obsessives to extraordinary lengths.
One young fern hunter describes taking a 15 foot bamboo pole
and tying a knife on the end, trying to gather her sea spleenwort.
Cutting-edge technology.
Locals took advantage of collectors, telling them it was too dangerous
to scale cliffs, but for a fee they'd do it for them.
'So it is I find myself clambering over the rocks at Lee Bay
'with a lad to carry my ladder.
'And botanist Maxine Putnam is my expert sea spleenwort spotter.'
You do need sharp eyes, don't you?
So we're looking for a tiny little fern somewhere in the spray zone.
There's some hart's tongue in the corners.
Is this the sort of area we should be looking?
This is the sort of place where the bracken grows well. It's drier.
I think we need to look for somewhere damper
to find the crevices where the sea spleenwort would grow.
RUTH LAUGHS
Look, just there, see? Can you see there? Is that something?
Come on, you're young and fit. Come on.
There's something there, look. Oh!
The colour is completely different from the grasses. Yes.
It really is, isn't it? Fantastic.
Isn't that pretty.
That's lovely, look at that. That's a sea spleenwort.
There's little bits of it all over actually, there and there.
There's lots of little bits. That is so pretty,
it's too pretty to pick it, isn't it? Let's have a look at the back.
Yes, it's fertile, look. There are the spores.
They like salt spray?
It does, yes. When the Atlantic gales come in,
the spray zone is probably significant here. Other ferns really
can't handle that amount of salt. No, it's the only one.
'The success of the lady collectors in stripping the cliffs bare
'would ultimately signal the end of their obsession.
'As the Victorian era ended, fern-mania began to unravel.'
In 1904 it became a crime in certain parts of Devon to uproot
or destroy a fern.
But it took a cataclysmic event to finally quell fern fever.
The arrival of the First World War distracted collectors
from the fripperies of ferns,
and by the time it ended, women and feminism had moved on.
We're walking around the British Isles,
seeking out secret paths to hidden treasures.
I'm exploring the most isolated edge of our mainland, Cape Wrath.
On this ragged fringe you're free to roam as you see fit,
as long as it's on foot.
Cape Wrath's name is from the Old Norse for 'turning point'.
The Vikings navigated by it.
The lighthouse is now home to just two permanent residents,
an intrepid couple eking out a living.
How you doing? Are you John? Yeah. How do you do, I'm Nick.
Very nice to meet you. Did you have a nice walk?
Yeah, well I'm just completely gobsmacked because I remember this
as a solitary lighthouse, but to find a real cafe operating
in what must be the remote headland in Britain is a...
Yes, it's quite well patronised for the tourists
cos they're quite glad to see it.
NICK LAUGHS 'I bet they are!' It can get quite harsh out here.
Can we have a look outside and around the cafe? Yeah!
Surprisingly, this far-flung spot had a brief brush with fame.
It started when John's wife Kay went for supplies.
But the weather closed in.
The nearest supermarket is 130 miles away.
130 miles!
Inverness for a major supermarket.
A couple of Christmases ago, Kay was off to the get the Christmas
shopping and couldn't get back for five weeks. She got stranded.
Five weeks! Stranded in Durness.
It made all the papers, things like this. That's hilarious.
"I popped out to buy a turkey on December 19,
and I've still not got home." HE LAUGHS
You were on your own suddenly?
Yeah. It's OK, we've got army rations and stuff put by,
so we can last for months up here without contact.
So you had a Christmas on army rations? Yeah.
I'm especially pleased to meet John
because we share a family connection.
My dad.
Dad, who's in his 80s,
met John recently on his own Cape Wrath expedition.
He told me all about it. Yes, it was nice to see him.
Just after Christmas and a blizzard kind of came in.
He said he was looking around in one of your outhouses
for somewhere to lie down and go to sleep, and you found him doing it.
Yeah, fished him out and brought him in.
Still talks about it. Yeah, glad he does.
My dad brought me here in 1972 when I was 18. It was a vicious January
day, the lighthouse keepers had seen us from a long way off, and they met
us at the door with mugs of tea.
It's stayed in my memory ever since. That's quite surreal.
It's a very special place, really special place.
This rugged coast is a real favourite in our family.
Knowing its moods with daylight fading,
I'm grateful for John's offer of shelter.
Like father, like son, I'm bedding down.
Basic, but very welcome.
Scotland is a dream location for those,
like me, who love the extremes on our edge.
Hill walkers are happiest on undulating mountain paths.
Secret routes reward tired legs with sea views to treasure.
And coastal pathways curtsey over splendid highs and lows,
whose rise and fall meet their man-made match in Blackpool.
SCREAMING
A coastal path wrought from a ribbon of steel.
Peaks and troughs engineered for terror.
Helen Arney is a physicist. She hopes her physics expertise
will unpick the secrets of this twisting track.
The Big One.
I'm here to discover the science
that puts the thrill into the funfair.
The path around Britain's tallest roller coaster
takes just 90 heart-stopping seconds.
Every moment is managed precisely to create the maximum thrill.
'Before I experience the ride I'm walking the track with engineer
'Alex Payne to discover the crafty tricks of science
'the designers have in store for me..'
Tell me what you do to engineer fear into every part of this ride.
Physics, psychology and physiology.
So we play around with all those three things
to give you the best ride experience you can get.
For instance we have the anti-rollback system
to prevent the train from rolling back.
We could just leave it as a nice, quiet safety device,
but why should we? You're on here for the best part of a minute.
We can make it go bang, bang in the background,
Making you think, what am I doing on here?
HELEN LAUGHS So shall we head up?
You can. I don't do heights. I'll head down, you enjoy your walk.
I'll let you know what it's like at the top. OK, see you later. See you.
With every step your heart beats faster,
but there's more to it than that.
You can feel the wind whipping past you,
you can feel the salt spray and smell the sea air as you climb.
Finally, when you reach the top all you can think is
"Wow, that is some drop."
PEOPLE SCREAMING
So this is the fastest part of the track,
you're doing 85mph at this point.
You've accelerated from 0-60 in 2.7 seconds. You don't experience
that very often in life.
And so what does that acceleration do to you at this point in the ride?
Down here you're pulling 4G, that's four times your own body weight,
that's over a quarter of a tonne just for you.
I will feel the weight of a baby hippo.
That's right, but in other areas of the ride where we go over
the crest of a hill, then we'll be getting down to zero G,
even negative G. That's when you're actually lighter than air.
Those are the bits where your stomach feels like it's
trying to leave your body.
That's right, you feel light headed.
You've accelerated one way and then the other.
Alex, that is far too close for comfort.
It's another psychological trick we can play on people.
They come around the last bend, don't expect to see a tunnel,
they see a dark tunnel, it looks really small,
never going to fit through that. Of course you will, there's loads of room.
So that's your secret, you use the reflex reaction to duck and hide
and get an extra bit of adrenaline.
That's it, we're playing with the mind again. I love it.
Any scientist worth her salt must put theory into practice.
So, my carriage awaits.
I should probably put these away. I don't want to lose anything
on this ride, apart from the contents of my stomach.
So, whoo, this bit is not too bad...
That's probably because the ride hasn't started yet.
I can hear the ratchets, it feels a lot more dangerous than it is.
And I can just about see the numbers clocking up,
we're going past 100 feet. Now the noise is starting to make me
even more nervous, it really feels like something is about to happen.
I can smell the sea, and we're nearly at the top. This is 200...
I know the physics I trust the physics,
but I am still completely terrified...
Argh, I can see the sea!
SHE SCREAMS
Wow... That was...
That was 4G and that was my baby hippo moment,
and now that is my stomach.
I think I've just left that somewhere back there.
Argh! Wow, that was a big jerk, and I feel I'm being knocked from side
to side. All right, now that is too close, that shouldn't...
not be there...
Whoo! And that's a little bit...
Wow, I think maybe next time I come to Blackpool...
I might just take a little stroll along the beach.
SHE LAUGHS
Some coastal paths constrain you to a cast iron route,
but I prefer to pave my own trail.
That's why I've come to the wild north of Scotland, Cape Wrath.
On this rugged edge, this routine of life is radically different.
Well, that's the first time I've slept on the floor
of a lighthouse but I'm very excited,
ahead is one of the most exciting coast walks in Britain.
'I've got to keep the pace up.
'It's a punishing hike over strength-sapping peat bog.
'I'm beating a path to Sandwood Bay, but before I savour that sandy
'treasure, there's some unfinished business I just can't resist.'
I want to complete the journey of a hero of mine.
'He was the first to map the Scottish Highlands
'over 400 years ago. His name?
'Timothy Pont. I've brought an example of his amazing work.'
When you place Pont's 16th century maps on top of the modern
Ordnance Survey map, you realise how accurate his work was.
Look at this, he's marked "Faro Head" here,
and underneath on the modern map is Faraid Head.
He's got the place called Sandwatt here and Sandwatt Beg.
Well, that's Sandwood, the place that I'm heading towards,
the treasure on the coast of north-west Scotland.
But there's a missing link. Pont didn't map Cape Wrath itself,
and I wonder whether the reason is this label, "Extreme wilderness".
And then underneath, "Bhellachmaddy - Woolf's Way."
Maybe it was just too wild and too dangerous.
Now I'm going to make my own sketch map of Cape Wrath
using the same techniques that Pont did and finish his work.
'This is the perfect vantage point. I can see for miles.
'For my sketch map I'll mark the key features, like Kervaig Bay.
'But every peninsula has two sides.
'To capture the Cape's other coast, I've got to hoof it over land.
'Looks like I'm walking into trouble.'
I set off in beautiful clear weather, looking for a vantage point
that I could use to sketch the coast south from Cape Wrath towards
Sandwood, but then the mist came out of nowhere
and has completely smothered the view.
What would Pont had done?
It must have happened to him all the time.
I'm hoping it's going to clear, but a bit of a problem just now.
Well, partial success.
I've got a really good view from this vantage point southwards.
But in the other direction, the sea mist is sitting right on top of the
Cape, so maybe it was the weather that kept Cape Wrath off Pont's map.
The Scottish shore doesn't give up its treasures easily, but commerce
will pay the price to prise out the mineral wealth of the Western Isles.
And coastal walkers can owe gratitude to coastal workers.
Industry has forged many new routes. Quarrymen don't only cut
into the ground, they cut along it to create new roads.
When works are abandoned,
those tracks are taken over by walkers.
Such secret paths to hidden treasure
can still be discovered on the Scottish coast.
A treasure map from an old quarry points to the isle of Iona.
A group of gemstone collectors
hunting for precious green marble
are led by Adam McIntosh.
All right, here, I've got a geological map of Iona,
and it's very interesting because it shows us how rare green marble is.
We've got all the rock formations here,
and if I zoom in, X marks the spot,
this little blue patch shows us exactly where it is.
Being a gemstone trader is an unusual career path.
But Adam and his team are following in the wake of quarrymen
who first made this trip some 200 years ago.
This is the marble quarry on the southeast shore of Iona.
Yeah, quite an eerie feeling being in here
because it is so quiet and peaceful.
So, I've got this old picture
taken when the mine was in action over 100 years ago.
And this crane was known as a derrick in the trade.
And they'd be lifting these blocks of marble out into the puffer boats
sitting out there in the water and taking them off to far-off lands.
I've got a lot of compassion for the boys that worked in this mine.
It would have been very long hours and very hard work.
And part of my compassion is also due to the fact
that I'm also looking for marble,
and I need that for my business and for me to survive.
And this mine here is now a historic monument.
You cannot take any marble from this mine,
and no marble from any other source from Iona.
But we've got a different plan.
Adam's bright idea must wait until sunrise
when the tides are in his favour.
Iona's landscape is protected,
but the seam of green marble runs out under the sea.
Adam's hunt for the precious stone will take him offshore.
You nervous about tomorrow, Rich? No.
Are you confident we'll find stuff?
I think, yeah, there's a good chance, aye.
Looking forward to it, man. Yeah.
To find the submerged path to hidden treasure
you need to hold your breath.
Both me and Richard love free-diving.
It's not just a good way to get a feed
of scallops and mussels and prawns,
but it's a good way to find Scottish green marble.
It's freezing!
On my left here we have the old marble quarry,
and the seam of marble supposedly runs under the ocean here,
so we're going to follow the path of the green marble
and hope we find some nice gemstones.
Ahey!
Bingo!
Lovely big chunk of Scottish green marble.
Maybe they struck the mother lode
but they won't know the quality until they head back
and open up the rock.
Moment of truth, man. Well, it really is
because when you've got all this seaweed and algae growing on it
you just don't know what's inside.
Shall we put it on and have a go? Go for it, nice.
There we go. There we go. Moment of truth.
Ah! Oooh, beauty. There you go.
Absolutely... Like strips of green bacon.
RICHARD LAUGHS Dude, that is gorgeous.
Wicked. Absolutely gorgeous.
The marble is from limestone that's been metamorphisized.
This green pigment here is serpentine.
It's from ancient seaweeds.
And what's happened is the chlorophyll from that seaweed,
the green pigment, has rotted away and settled on the sea bed
with this white limestone, and formed into this mixture.
This is about 2,800 million years old... Wow.
..give or take a decade or two but, for sure, it's stunning.
That's going to make some beautiful jewellery.
We're searching for hidden treasures on shoreline tracks.
In Cardiff you can join the coast path that's the wonder of Wales.
When the Welsh created a continuous path around their entire coastline,
it was a world's first.
And even when the sea blocks the way at Barmouth
they walk across the rail bridge.
There's 870 miles to tread,
but some still prefer a precarious path of their own making.
One such route lies on the edge of Anglesey.
The cliffs of Gogarth are not for the faint-hearted
but Andy Torbet is about to savour a climber's treasure.
I do enjoy making life a little bit tougher for myself.
And over that edge is a secret path
that's haunted my imagination for years.
Only seasoned climbers know
that below is a seemingly-impossible route,
hidden from view.
A route made famous by this fabled photograph.
It captures a classic moment in climbing history.
It's a moment of great drama -
a new path being put up on the cliff face.
The photo, with the wave leaping upwards
as if to claim the two tiny figures,
earned the climb classic status.
The climbers are Dave Pearce and Ed Drummond,
young upstarts who, in 1968, dared to brave the unknown.
Some said it couldn't be done, but they made it to the top,
and because of that they got to name this climb,
and they christened it A Dream Of White Horses,
in honour of the white-crested crashing waves
that beat the cliff beneath them.
'I've dreamt of the Dream Of White Horses for years now.
'Steve Long will be leading our attempt.
'What have I let myself in for?'
Let's sit down and have a look.
What do you think?
It's a pretty intimidating bit of rock. It's amazing, isn't it?
So, what happens if I come off?
You've got big problems because you're just hanging above the sea.
'Time to get on with it.'
And I'm wearing a head cam,
which means you get to see what I see.
Scary, isn't it?
This big bubbling cauldron of white water at the bottom
just adds to the atmosphere.
That's the rope down, that's us completely committed,
and the only way out now is that way.
The first pitch is the hardest.
Hand and footholds are rare and small,
route finding is hard.
And just when I need to concentrate we've got an audience,
a man who knows the secrets of the Dream of White Horses route
better than most.
Leo Dickinson took the famous photo of the original ascent back in 1968.
As I was wandering down these cliffs here,
I suddenly had this feeling that something extraordinary
was going to happen.
And I sat more or less here, and with a camera with a 28mm lens
I looked over my shoulder,
and suddenly, this great white wave seemed to go up.
It seemed to last for seconds, it probably didn't.
And I just took a picture.
It was a one-chance shot.
For Leo, this was the start of a successful career
as an adventure photographer
which took him all around the world,
but no picture's been as influential
as the one on the Gogarth cliffs.
Leo's primed to recapture his momentous photograph, and so are we.
Right now, Andy is on one of the most exposed bits of rock
in Britain, so he's probably thinking,
what on earth am I doing here?
I've made it over pitch one.
Now, for the second, where the path's supposedly easier to follow.
That's not how it looks to me.
I still can't see an obvious easy line out.
I know, and that's the great thing about this route, you know,
the more committed you get,
the more you start to wish you hadn't.
Steve forges ahead using a natural fault line in the cliff face.
Left alone here, this place is starting to play on my mind.
You can see why the climb gets its name,
that thunderous roar and wave beneath me,
it makes it more exposed, more intimidating, more scary.
I've no idea how Ed Drummond and Dave Pearce
navigated this blind for the very first time.
After Ed and Dave had gone across this great traverse,
they were quite tense because they really didn't know
what they were getting into,
and the sting in the tail is towards the end.
And it's that sting in the tail that I'm heading for now.
Dream's final pitch is not as technically difficult
as some of the earlier climbing but it's far more intimidating.
Can't see where you're going.
Oh, yes.
The path is hard to find,
but it takes you to a place like no other...
..a terrifying overhang suspended 60m over the ocean.
Then, as you wrestle with the route,
suddenly, A Dream Of White Horses releases you.
Oh, ho-ho! Nice, put it there. Well done. That's superb. Brilliant.
To prove our dream was real,
has Leo captured a picture to compare with his original 1968 shot?
Hi, guys. Did you enjoy it?
Awesome. Yeah?
I've been trying hard to emulate that picture I took,
I don't think I've improved on it.
We didn't have the magical moment today.
Well, Leo might not think it's up to scratch
but I'll never forget this day.
That makes this photograph even more special for me.
Andy's not the only one out on a limb.
We're seeking out our stunning shoreline paths.
I'm on the edge for Britain's wildest coastal walk
at Cape Wrath.
My path's taking me to the glorious beach at Sandwood Bay,
but right now there's a peat bog in my way.
And that's not all.
It's quite dramatic, the great chasm blocking the route
south along the coast.
I'm not sure I'm going to get across this.
That's, uh...that's pretty vertical there.
It's never a good idea to down-climb a cliff
with a backpack on your back, and no rope,
so I'm looking for a way down that's less steep.
The thing is, what you have to do is follow the river upstream
until you find a less steep bit.
Now, that might do.
Let's have a look.
The going's tough.
It's clear I'm not going to make it to Sandwood Bay tonight.
I need to find shelter.
In the wild Cape Wrath the only option for a roof over your head
is to make for one of the isolated bothies.
Today the bothies are left open for walkers,
but originally, they were built for shepherds,
and, until 20 years ago, this bothie had a remarkable resident.
This was the home of the man known as The Hermit Of The Highlands,
James McRory Smith,
who lived here for 30 years totally alone.
Wow, this is really, really cosy.
It's a wild, windy evening out there,
and it's completely still in here.
And here's a picture of James.
That's a very kindly face in the photograph,
quite weather-beaten.
And this was his sanctuary, his little den.
Look over here, there's a Viking longship sailing out of the sea.
Perhaps, more interesting, are the things you can't see here.
There are no electrical sockets, there are no lights,
there's not even a lavatory in here,
or running water - you have to use the river outside.
It's a stone shell that James turned into a home.
There's parts of me that would quite like to, uh,
spend a while living here, find out what it's like,
not like James, not for 30 years, that's pretty extreme,
but I wouldn't mind trying a year maybe.
'Unfortunately, I've only got one night,
'so I'd best try and make myself at home.'
Over the years, James captured the imagination of the press.
He became something of a local celebrity.
The people who met James came away with a much more intimate,
touching picture of this man who lived alone.
Here's an angler who called by in the 1970s.
He says, "Despite his isolation
"he seemed to be remarkably well informed
"on what was happening in the outside world.
"He said he'd read a lot.
"I asked him how he got hold of all the books and magazines,
"and he said, 'Most were left by visitors, all were read.'
"Some he read again, others ended up on the fire."
I don't think James was a hermit at all, he relished solitude
but he also enjoyed the company of his fellow human beings.
Tomorrow, my coastal treasure awaits at the end of the path.
Tonight, though, there's time to think of those
who've tramped this way before me.
Our rich past encourages walkers to take in the history
around our isles.
But imagine one short coastal path
that could encompass the whole timeline of our past.
Surprisingly, such a secret path can be found -
on little Lundy.
Mark is taking an epic trail on a tiny scale.
Lundy Island, a wilderness where nature thrives.
Most people come to Lundy to admire the marine life and the wildlife,
but to me as an archaeologist, the real treasure lies beneath the soil.
I'm going to take you on a ten-mile coastal walk
that's going to take 10,000 years to complete.
Bizarrely, in this single shed there's evidence of many
waves of people who've tried to make Lundy home.
Objects stretching back millennia.
This is a kind of Aladdin's cave of treasures.
Horseshoe, gaming piece,
and that could be medieval actually.
Clay pipe fragments there,
a rotary quern stone that's probably Roman actually...
Ooh, gosh it's heavy.
Oh, look, look, here's the archaeology.
Some flints, worked pebbles,
8,000-10,000 years old, something like that.
Bits of old granite, look at it.
HE CHUCKLES
Why is there a propeller here?
This treasure can take me back in time.
I'm plotting a secret path linking where the objects were discovered.
These random artefacts can help me tell the story of mankind,
my journey around the island.
My path across Lundy will take me on a hike
through 10,000 years of history,
beginning in the Stone Age.
This is it,
where all those Mesolithic and Neolithic flints were found.
Remarkably, these fields concealed Stone Age secrets.
The earliest folk on Lundy fashioned flint into cutting tools.
This is an extraordinary microlith, crude from basically beach pebbles.
It's fantastic to see where they were actually found.
A piece of pottery in the attic provides a clue
to more advanced technology.
We're now in search of the Bronze Age.
This is it. Isn't that amazing?
This is a little Bronze Age hut.
You can see the stone walls round on there, both sides.
It probably would have had a turf roof on top of us here
supported by a central post,
and there's a doorway, a room with a view, if you like.
Even hardy Bronze Age settlers may only have been seasonal visitors.
Harsh winters forcing them back to the mainland.
I'm leaving the exposed north, heading south
fast-forwarding 2,000 years into civilisation...
..the Romans!
In the attic was a Roman quern stone used to grind grain for bread.
Somewhere here our quern stone was found
in the middle of what's probably a Celtic monastery.
Around AD 500, the monks were probably using the grindstone
the Romans had left behind.
Nothing goes to waste on Lundy.
My time traveller's path now takes me to the 13th century and beyond.
The castle was commissioned in 1243 by Henry III,
it was re-fortified successively until the 18th century.
However, excavations here in the parade ground
revealed lots of objects
including our gaming board and its counter,
and this clay tobacco pipe from the Civil War.
Heading up the island's east coast, I march onwards in time.
Granite in the attic leads me on a path of short-lived folly.
The year is 1863, and we've reached the Industrial Revolution.
The Lundy Granite Company
reckoned they had 50 million tonnes of the stuff.
This is what the Victorian quarry must have looked like at its heyday.
But the management focused more on boozing than quarrying.
Just five years after starting up, the works fell silent.
Film cans in the attic are my clue
to the man who would be King Of Lundy.
I've reached the 20th century and film footage of islanders.
I'm meeting Derek Green, the manager of Lundy.
Hello, good to see you. Hello. These are the films?
They are indeed. Fantastic.
Shall we go and have a look? Yes, please.
The footage shows a man destined to become boss of the whole place.
Not Derek but this chap, Martin Coles Harman.
He bought the island in 1925 after visiting as a young lad.
And that's him? And that's him.
In his hat. The press called him The King Of Lundy.
Well, they did indeed, that was a media term that was used,
uh, but I don't think he ever denied it very much.
Lundy's "King" even tried to take on the British monarchy.
In 1929 he dismissed the Post Office from the island,
and it was because he hated authority. Yes.
And he introduced his own stamps.
The currency is in puffins. One puffin is worth one penny.
He also introduced coins because he wanted his own currency.
Puffin on one side?
Yeah, and interestingly, on the other side...
There he is. There he is.
Under Harman's reign, the island finally started to thrive.
Children were born, marriages celebrated,
and Harman introduced exotic animals like peacocks and wallabies.
Harman succeeded in creating his own kingdom.
The outside world would come crashing in.
Remember that propeller in the attic?
But of everything we've seen, this is my favourite bit of Lundy.
It's a frozen moment in time.
In 1941, on the 3rd of March, a German Heinkel bomber
returning from the Irish Sea crash-landed at this spot.
And what we've got is the molten aluminium from the fuselage,
the engine block.
And what's incredible is that nobody has actually
picked up the pieces.
They're still here 70 years later.
Martin Harman, the so-called King Of Lundy, died in 1954.
Now, he rests in the land he loved.
As for Lundy, in 1969 the National Trust took it over,
preserving its treasures for all.
Little Lundy's precious artefacts
are a permanent reminder of our island story.
What's incredible is that it's all encapsulated
on this tiny little island.
My own little treasure awaits at the end of my secret path
on the northwest tip of Scotland.
I've just caught sight of the great sea stack,
the column of rock that marks the southern end of Sandwood Bay,
the coastal treasure that I'm heading towards.
It's just across this vast expanse of bog and rock.
I told you it was a treasure.
This corner of our island is as close as you can get
to wilderness in mainland Britain.
And, for me, the jewel on this section of the coast is this place,
Sandwood Bay.
But there's something here you won't find anywhere else.
It's to do with the long walk you have to take to get here -
it's the beauty of solitude.