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In 1840, one man
transformed travel in Britain.

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His name was George Bradshaw, and
his railway guides inspired the
Victorians to take to the tracks.

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Stop by stop,
he told them where to travel,
what to see, and where to stay.

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Now, 170 years later, I'm making a
series of journeys across the length

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and breadth of the country to see
what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

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I've travelled almost halfway along

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Hibernia's stunning West Highland Line.

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Using a late 19th century Bradshaw's
guide, I'm continuing my journey

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up the west coast of Scotland
from Ayr to Skye.

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The Scots have been blessed with
beautiful coasts, with rivers of
sweet water, with wonderful rolling

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countryside, and today I'll discover

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how the Scots have managed to
harvest the best from each.

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The line was completed only
at the end of the 19th century,

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so I've exchanged my usual 1860s
Bradshaw's for a later edition.

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I'll be using it to plan my route
and trace how the railways brought

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a new generation of traveller
to Scotland.

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On this leg of the journey,
I'll be discovering how Victorian

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railway engineers conquered
Britain's most desolate
wilderness...

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The bogs on the moor

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sucked everything up that
the engineers laid.

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Part of the railway you see here,
north of the station has been floated
on brushwood and turf.

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..visiting a shooting estate that
was a favourite of the
political elite...

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These guys, they were tough.

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There was a whole sort of cult
of course amongst very many of
these people of being tough.

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And deer stalking was part of that.

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..and learning how the railways
helped make whisky world famous.

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This is from
pretty much the exact time of the
railways arriving in Oban.

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I can see the railway here, can't I?

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Here's the station, here's
the train, puffing along.

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Yes, that would be one of the
first pictures of the railway.

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Starting in Ayr,

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I've now covered almost 140 miles

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of the route, heading north.

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Now the West Highland line
is taking me through some

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of Scotland's wildest terrain,
from boggy moors to towering peaks,
on my way to the isle of Skye.

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Today's route begins in coastal
Oban, then shifts inland to the

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wilderness of Rannoch Moor,
before climbing up to Corrour,

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Britain's highest mainline station.

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My journey passes through rough
country that posed challenges to the
hardy folk who dwelled here.

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As we move into Argyllshire,
my Bradshaw's guide is
as helpful as ever.

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"Oats, potatoes and black
cattle are the chief products

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"of this backward district, which
has a mossy soil and wet climate
unfavourable to agriculture."

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Oh, dear, that's not
very positive, is it?

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Bradshaw's may have thought
the countryside backward.

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But Scotland's rain was
key to a booming business.

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My first stop is Oban,
a town that grew up on the
back of a thriving whisky trade.

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Isn't it grand that this
stuff is made in Scotland?

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Aye, that's true.

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Before the railways arrived,
this was an isolated place,
difficult to reach except by boat.

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It was the
ideal location to make whisky.

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I'm meeting distillery
manager Brendan McCarron.

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I notice distilleries in
Scotland are quite often

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spread around in remote places,
what's the historic reason for that?

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Yeah, the distilleries
are spread out remotely.

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There were various reasons of
water and raw materials, but the
main one was to avoid paying tax.

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Avoid paying tax? Yeah, it
started off as an illicit industry.

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Tax costs you money so
if you make it where no-one sees you,
you don't pay the tax.

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Here at Oban you've been established
a couple of hundred years at least?

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We were established in 1794, so
we were one of the very first
distilleries to become legal.

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As business grew, the
distillery owners invested in Oban,

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turning it into a busy town.

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When the railways arrived in 1880,
trains linked with steamships to

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the Inner Hebrides,
and Oban became a major tourist hub.

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The whisky trade
received another boost.

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All our raw materials came in by
train over different periods,
in different amounts.

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But I suppose the really huge one
that came in for us was people.

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People flocked to Oban after the
railway opened and that's what gets
people understanding your whisky,

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knowing how good your whisky is,
and that's what sells it.
It was massive actually.

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In the 1880s, Oban whisky was in
such demand that the distillery's
owner, J Walter Higgin, rebuilt

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the plant, carefully preserving the
old stills that guaranteed quality.

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This is from pretty much the exact
time of the railways arriving in Oban

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and you can tell that
because of the signature...

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that's J Walter Higgin.
J Walter Higgin's signature.

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And a lovely
engraving of the harbour at Oban.

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And I actually I can see the railway
here can't I?

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Here's the station,
here's a train puffing along.

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Yeah, that'll be one of the
first pictures of the railway.

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Oh, that's wonderful.

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And obviously you don't drink that?

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No, definitely not. It's far too old!

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The Oban whisky that we make in
the main is matured for 14 years,
so it's a long time.

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And it's always matured in
an ex-American bourbon cask.

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So we buy them off the bourbon makers

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and we use their old casks
to make our whisky.

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Bourbon used to be imported
from America through Oban

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and canny Scottish distillers
would reuse the empty casks.

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They discovered that the barrels
enhanced the whisky's flavour.

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Oh, the fumes, Brendan!

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Yeah, this hasn't been reduced with
water, so this is about 58% alcohol.

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Right. That's why it's knocking
me out, is it? It's got a real kick.

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So, you really wouldn't want
to be tasting this, would you?

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You can taste it at that strength,
you just wouldn't want to.

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You wouldn't want to go
out for the night on it.

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You wouldn't. And you want to
know it's cask strength before you
drink it,

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but it's worth trying at
that strength.

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Yep...

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Very smoky, orangey.

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It's got a slight smokiness to
it and it has got oranges in it also.

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Some people pick up salt.
And also because it's been in a cask,
in the 14 you will pick up a

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a kind of sweetness, honeyness,
which is influenced by the cask.

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Well, I think I've just not drunk
enough yet. Let me see if I can find
the honey and the salt!

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Help yourself.

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Silly old me, there they are!

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Honey and salt. I just
needed the second sample. Excellent.

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A man knows his limits, and I must
leave to investigate

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another of Oban's 19th
century industries.

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The Bradshaw's guide says
that "From the great abundance

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"of seaweed which is cast ashore
vast quantities of kelp is made,"

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and I'm wondering what Victorians
did with vast quantities of kelp.

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I'll have to find out.

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I'm heading for Oban's dramatic and
rocky coastline,

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the perfect habitat for seaweed,
to meet Professor Laurence Mee,

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director of the Scottish Association
for Marine Science.

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How are you?
All right, Michael.

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Now, my Bradshaw's guide, written in
the middle/late 19th century,

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talks about a vast
abundance of seaweed... Yes.

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..and enormous quantities of kelp
being harvested,
but for what purpose?

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Well, that's right. Kelp was
harvested even from the middle
ages along the coast of Scotland.

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The soils here are very poor and
to eke out an existence, crofters,

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the local farmers, soon discovered
that harvesting kelp and mixing it
with the poor soils just by basically

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turning over the turf, adding kelp,
they could grow vegetables and have a
much better existence.

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So kelp was a
primary source of fertilisers for
them from very early on.

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And then at the latter part of the
18th century

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they discovered that by
burning kelp you can produce these

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chemicals, sodium carbonate
is one of them, which are
primary constituents in glass.

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And it became
a major source for the glass industry
of its primary chemicals.

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Sodium carbonate or potash
extracted from seaweed helps make

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glass transparent and lowers the
temperature at which it melts.

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By 1800, Scotland was producing
20,000 tonnes of kelp per year.

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Suddenly the entire industry
collapsed in about 1820, when potash

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mines were discovered in Germany
and a cheap substitute became

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available, and the entire
population became destitute as a
result in a very short time.

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Later on, kelp again became useful.

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A new industry grew up
using seaweed

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to produce
iodine and food additives.

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Now, scientists like Laurence
believe it could contribute
to a greener future.

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What we're seeing now
is it's potential as a biofuel.

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Just to give an example, an
area about half the size of

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a football pitch of cultivated
laminaria, that is these long
gooey ones,

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can be converted into enough fuel
to fuel a household for a year.

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Or, with higher technology it is
possible perhaps to even go to the
holy grail of transport fuels.

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But in contrast to Bradshaw's time,

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future harvests will come from
farmed rather than wild seaweed.

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I can't help noticing that you
are carrying

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a very strange piece
of equipment.

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What is that for?

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What we do is
we grow the tiny larvae and we get
them to settle on these strings.

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And once they are growing, after
about a month,

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the string can be
unwound, wound on to a rope and

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lowered into the sea and then we have
a cultivar

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and a way of producing
our own seaweed without disturbing

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the natural environment to collect
it. That is very cunning.

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It's clever stuff really.

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It looks very Heath
Robinson, doesn't it? It does.

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If you don't mind me saying so.

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It is very Heath Robinson,
but it works

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and that's the most important
thing about it.

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Who knows, perhaps one day our
trains will be powered by seaweed?

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I'm now quitting the
coast and moving inland.

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I'm travelling towards Rannoch Moor,
1,000 feet above sea level, and as

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the route steadily climbs, I'm
anticipating breathtaking scenery.

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Bradshaw's says that the landscape,

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"is mountainous throughout, on rocks
of mica slate

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"and granite, covered with heath.

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"Glens of much picturesque beauty
are met with."

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This wilderness is truly beautiful,

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but it posed innumerable
difficulties

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for the railway's builders,

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not least here where the line

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diverts around the horse shoe curve.

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It snakes along the contour,

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spanning the glens

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on spectacular viaducts.

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Yet the greatest test

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for the Victorian engineers
lay ahead -

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how to cross the soggy expanse
of Rannoch Moor.

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Well, Rannoch Moor really is a
forbidding, wind blown, desolate

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sort of place and the interesting
thing is that the railway station
is right in the heart of it.

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And actually, Rannoch is
much more accessible by
rail than it is by road.

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It just makes you wonder what
they must have gone through

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to build a railway line
across this rock and this peat bog.

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Despite being one of the
bleakest spots in Britain,

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railway mania demanded that the
engineers

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of the West Highland Line
find a means to traverse it.

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Doug Carmichael knows the story.

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Hello Doug. Hello Michael, pleased
to meet you.

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Welcome to the Moor of Rannoch,
the great table land of Scotland.

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It's an amazing moor.

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I imagine it must have been hellish
to build a railway across it.

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It certainly was.
Thomas Telford, the road builder,

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decided he might be able to get a
road to Fort William via the moor,
but he gave up - too hard.

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Rannoch Moor is a 50 square mile
plateau of granite, topped with
peat bogs up to 20 feet deep.

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In 1889, a small party of men
was sent to inspect the route
across this hostile environment.

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There were seven gentlemen
set out quite far north of here,
to walk 40 miles in January.

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They were all just businessmen in
normal business attire.

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No big boots, anything like that.

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They found that the weather
was against them all the way.

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The darkness came down, they were
lighting matches in the middle of a
moor to see where they were going.

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They were falling into the
bogs continually and
things weren't very good.

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Their near-death experience
on the moor didn't
discourage the engineers.

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They persevered and devised a
technique to master the bog.

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Part of the railway you see here,
north of the station has been floated
on brushwood and turf.

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The bogs on the moor,

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sucked everything up
that the engineers laid,

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but they kept putting more and more
brushwood, more and more turf and
finally hundreds of wagon loads

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of ash from the industrial south were
brought up, laid on top and finally,

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they had a track bed across the moor.

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It must have been terrible when
the navvies came to build the line?

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Yes, indeed, 5,000 navvies
were employed between Craigendoran
and Fort William.

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They had to go through exceedingly
hard rock as you'd expect
in the Scottish Highlands,

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and of course didn't have
the equipment at the end of the
19th century

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as we expect now,
as we accept now, indeed.

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There was a lot blasting,
there was some loss of life actually
because of blasting.

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What had been the importance of this
railway historically in more than
100 years it has now existed?

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The importance of it was that
it took a railway into a land

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which had never seen civilisation,
let alone a railway.

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There were no roads,
there were hardly any tracks.

218
00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:26,520
People from the Highlands could never
get down to the Central Belt
in Scotland for any reason.

219
00:15:26,520 --> 00:15:30,040
When the railway came, all of a
sudden they found they could come out

220
00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:34,360
of Fort William, go down to Glasgow,
albeit on quite a long trip,

221
00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:40,400
but of course to them it was luxury
sitting in a train, as opposed
to a horse and cart or walking.

222
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:50,400
Our ideas of luxury may have
moved on since then, but we
recognise it when we see it and,

223
00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:53,480
occasionally,
we see it in the Highlands.

224
00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:57,120
So here on the bridge at Rannoch,

225
00:15:57,120 --> 00:16:00,160
with literally not another
human being in sight,

226
00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:03,920
I can hear the sound of...

227
00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:08,560
a locomotive powering up the
slope towards the station.

228
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:13,120
Here comes...

229
00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:16,240
a very special train.

230
00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:17,920
The Royal Scotsman.

231
00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:24,480
Car after car of luxury

232
00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:28,880
and great food and comfy beds.

233
00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:36,080
The Royal Scotsman was launched
in 1990 to recreate the elegant
travel of the Edwardian era.

234
00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:39,760
It attracts guests from around
the globe, and while it makes a

235
00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:44,160
brief stop at Rannoch Moor, I'm
gate-crashing pre-dinner cocktails.

236
00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:46,000
May I join you just for a moment?

237
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,000
Certainly!

238
00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:53,040
So, are you enjoying your trip on
this luxurious train? Very much so.

239
00:16:53,040 --> 00:16:56,480
And what about you,
are you a railway enthusiast?

240
00:16:56,480 --> 00:17:00,120
This is my first time, I actually
spent a day on the British Pullman

241
00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:05,120
and loved it and every time Mum
sees a piece of tartan or a
bagpipe she bursts into tears.

242
00:17:05,120 --> 00:17:08,760
So basically we decided
to come and do Scotland.

243
00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:11,720
This was the best way to do it.
So we're doing the whole week.

244
00:17:11,720 --> 00:17:16,040
We sort of do one side and
then we go back and
then reload and then do the other.

245
00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:19,600
Would that be a glass of champagne
in your hand? Yes, that's right.

246
00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:24,000
Whenever you want one, you just
put your finger up,
they look after you very well here.

247
00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:34,560
As the party continues, I feel
like the poor relation,
peering in to the family feast.

248
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:36,200
They've left me behind!

249
00:17:38,440 --> 00:17:42,160
No exclusive cabin on board for me
tonight, but even in this lonely

250
00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:46,240
spot, I've found somewhere
warm and cosy to lay my head.

251
00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:51,560
A hotel that was originally built
to house men labouring
to construct the railway.

252
00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:55,800
Well, I've come about
50 metres from the railway station

253
00:17:55,800 --> 00:18:01,440
and it seems that almost the only
thing in Rannoch, other than the
station, is this charming hotel.

254
00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:05,040
I'm really excited by the idea
of staying somewhere inaccessible,

255
00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:08,360
somewhere that's really difficult to
reach except by train,

256
00:18:08,360 --> 00:18:10,360
so this is where I'm staying!

257
00:18:14,800 --> 00:18:18,400
Hello.
Well, hello. Michael Portillo.

258
00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:21,520
Liz Conway, lovely to meet you.
Checking in if I can.

259
00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:24,560
Yes, I've got your key all ready.
I've got everything ready for you.

260
00:18:24,560 --> 00:18:31,480
Even in summer, I feel cut off
here but hotel owner, Liz Conway,
must cope in every season.

261
00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:37,360
We're in this splendid
isolation but we have had
the worst winter up here in 50 years.

262
00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:44,040
We had, we were cut off for three
days and some of our neighbours
had no water for up to three months.

263
00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:46,720
You don't have any neighbours,
what are you talking about?!

264
00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:50,360
We do, we have a couple of
neighbours, there's five of
us live in Rannoch.

265
00:18:50,360 --> 00:18:53,240
Five? Five of us. In the
metropolitan borough of Rannoch!

266
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:56,040
Yes, five. But as I said,

267
00:18:56,040 --> 00:19:00,920
we're in this splendid isolation
because although we're in the middle
of nowhere, we have our trains.

268
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:02,440
And we can get to anywhere here.

269
00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:07,080
I'm feeling really excited about
staying in such an isolated spot,

270
00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:10,280
particularly
that you reach best by railway.

271
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:13,280
Well, 50% of our business
comes from the railway.

272
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:15,600
So it's very much a
part of our lives.

273
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,560
We hardly ever use a car,
only to go to the vets.

274
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:20,200
That's the time we use the car.

275
00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:22,840
We use the railway for everything.

276
00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:24,440
Your dogs don't like the train?!

277
00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:26,640
No, it's cats actually, it's cats!

278
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:49,240
Morning. It's time for me to resume
my journey, and I'm going to enjoy
being plucked from this remoteness,

279
00:19:49,240 --> 00:19:53,760
by a train that's come
directly from London.

280
00:19:53,760 --> 00:20:00,400
The first train of day for those
headed north is the sleeper
which left Euston last night,

281
00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:06,560
here it is at 8.45.

282
00:20:06,560 --> 00:20:08,960
Anybody who gets off here

283
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:12,800
can expect a very nice breakfast
if they just go into the hotel,

284
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,560
but tacked on the end of the
sleeper is a car of seats,

285
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:21,720
which is very useful for local
residents and local journeys.

286
00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:25,920
Morning.

287
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:45,280
(Very comfortable.)

288
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:47,720
(I'm whispering because
everyone's asleep.)

289
00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:58,120
This Caledonian sleeper will take
me, as no road can, just seven
miles along the track to Corrour.

290
00:20:58,120 --> 00:21:01,000
We're passing through a
forbidding landscape, but one

291
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:05,640
in which Victorians nonetheless
created a lucrative industry.

292
00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:12,440
My Bradshaw's guide says that
the deer shooting of this county
are worth £70,000 a year.

293
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:16,240
"Vast tracks are preserved
for deer stalking."

294
00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:21,520
Well, the sums of money may
well have changed, but this is
still deer stalking country.

295
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:27,200
I've quite often been out with deer
stalkers. I don't shoot deer myself,
but even if you are not one

296
00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:33,640
shooting, the walk, when you have
to follow the deer over the hills,
the walk is absolutely amazing.

297
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:49,320
At over 1300 feet, Corrour is the
highest mainline station in the UK.

298
00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:52,560
It was built to serve the nearby
estate, so despite its remoteness,

299
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:57,880
the rich and powerful could enjoy
the king of sports.

300
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:02,200
Estate owner,
Sir John Stirling Maxwell,
took advantage of the new line

301
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:08,560
to create with his hunting lodge, a
rural paradise for the ruling class.

302
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:16,560
Professor Jim Hunter is an
expert on Highland history.

303
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:19,360
Hi, Jim, good to see you.
Good to meet you.

304
00:22:19,360 --> 00:22:25,920
As a former politician,
even in this lovely fresh air,
I get the smell of power.

305
00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:29,080
This was a place where powerful
people used to come, wasn't it?

306
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:34,000
Very much so, yes. And in the late
19th, early 20th century, just about

307
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:39,600
everybody who was anybody,
not just politically but financially,
industrially as it were,

308
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:42,920
this was where they gravitated
around this time of year.

309
00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:47,440
And of course many of them would
have come from Westminster or from

310
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:51,880
manufactories in Birmingham or
wherever to these estates by train.

311
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:55,920
Oh, absolutely, in fact the arrival
of the railways in the Highlands here

312
00:22:55,920 --> 00:23:00,200
round about the 1890s, some other
parts of the Highlands a bit earlier,

313
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:05,000
that was critical in opening up
the area to these kinds of people
from the south.

314
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:09,160
And they would come mob-handed, they
would come with an entire entourage

315
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:16,000
of servants and perhaps take a
shooting lodge or a big house here
and be here for two or three weeks.

316
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:22,120
Hunting, shooting and stalking were
so integral to the life cycle of

317
00:23:22,120 --> 00:23:26,000
the good and the great, that they
dictated the political calendar.

318
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,520
In the period we're talking for much
of that period anyway,

319
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:33,720
typically Parliament wouldn't sit
at all during what we would regard

320
00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:36,320
as the autumn and winter,
from July to February,

321
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:40,240
there was to be no interference with
the hunting season, is that right?

322
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:46,720
Yeah, the hunting, the whole deer
stalking thing was very much
a big thing for many of these people.

323
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:50,680
And I think it's worth emphasising
that these guys, they were tough.

324
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:55,680
There was a whole sort of cult
of course amongst very many of
these people of being tough.

325
00:23:55,680 --> 00:24:00,680
It was the era of big game hunting
and all that kind of thing.
And deer stalking was part of that.

326
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:08,720
By the late 19th century,
the demand for sporting estates
far exceeded supply.

327
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:13,520
The wealthy from south of the border
paid up to £5,000 per season

328
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:19,760
for a Scottish lodge,
from which they could shoot grouse,
hook salmon and stalk deer.

329
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:27,320
So the rugged pleasures of a terrain
like Corrour's could command
£200,000 in today's money.

330
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:30,160
What a fantastic, tranquil spot.

331
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:32,400
Beautiful, isn't it.

332
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:34,880
Gorgeous. Loch Ossian? Yeah.

333
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:40,360
I'm following in the footsteps
of Victorian sportsmen
with head stalker Donald Rowantree.

334
00:24:40,360 --> 00:24:47,840
I'm a late 19th traveller and I've
just arrived on the train and I'm
on my way to the shooting lodge.

335
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:49,480
How do I make my journey?

336
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:53,560
Well, you're going to come off
the train, which is a beautiful
journey as well in itself,

337
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:58,640
meet the horse and cart at the
station, your pony man, he'll
take you in there, day or night.

338
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:02,640
Trek just over a mile journey from
the train station behind us here,

339
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,080
right down to the loch side where
you'll meet the paddle steamer.

340
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:07,640
It will take you down to Loch Ossian.
Paddle steamer?

341
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:10,160
A paddle steamer indeed.

342
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:12,680
It's quite impressive.

343
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:19,440
Alas, the paddle steamer is long
gone, replaced by a newer
form of transport.

344
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:23,320
Not designed for comfort.

345
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:30,080
The estate stretches across
57,000 acres of splendid
Scottish countryside.

346
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:33,160
Donald regularly patrols this
huge area to monitor the deer

347
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:39,640
and has brought me to a spot
where I can appreciate
the grandeur of this wilderness.

348
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,000
Wonderful view. Beautiful.

349
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:45,960
In the 19th, no vehicles, all of
this would have been done by pony?
This would be pony, yes.

350
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,400
We'd have walked right from lodge,
all the way up to the hill

351
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:55,080
with the pony man in tow and come out
here for a spy and select our beast
and then move on from there.

352
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,960
And once you had your beast,
he would just be slung
on the pony would he?

353
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:02,000
He'd signal the pony man. They used
to have little signal fires and flags
and if you left a stone

354
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:05,640
on a certain knoll here, that
would mean keep coming forward
or we've shot a beast.

355
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:07,680
There was all little signals
they'd leave.

356
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:11,400
So yeah, we'd move the pony in,
sling him on the back of the pony.

357
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,160
Then take him on back
down to the larder.

358
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,000
As the estates flourished,
Victorian landowners began to

359
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:22,440
import new species of deer like the
Japanese Sika to vary their herds.

360
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:28,840
These days, deer numbers
are on the rise, and although
some object to stalking,

361
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:34,880
the estate believes it's the best
way to control the population which
might otherwise harm the ecology.

362
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,440
Donald takes the responsibility
very seriously.

363
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:43,120
How long have you been a
stalker and how long has your
family been stalking?

364
00:26:43,120 --> 00:26:45,760
I've been stalking with my father
since I was about nine.

365
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,920
He's been stalking with his father
and his father's father,

366
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,360
so I'm fourth generation of stalker,
or ghillie as we like to call it.

367
00:26:52,360 --> 00:26:55,480
I've got an attachment, I've been
brought up, it's in the blood.

368
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:59,040
The day I lose respect for the
animals is the day I've done enough.

369
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:07,760
When the first Bradshaw's guide was
published, the Highlands were a
world away from Industrial Britain.

370
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:11,280
But the West Highland Line
abolished distance.

371
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:18,720
Whisky flowed down its tracks to
the south and overnight sleepers
disgorged stalkers and anglers.

372
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:28,240
I enjoy the paradox that these
remote hills and valleys, which are

373
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:33,800
almost unreachable by car, have a
daily direct rail service to London.

374
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:41,520
The trains that bring now hardy
walkers, used to bring men of power
and indeed still do.

375
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:46,960
So that the Highlands,
whilst quiet, are certainly not
any kind of backwater.

376
00:27:54,120 --> 00:27:56,920
On my next journey, I'll be
unravelling one of

377
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:00,080
the 19th century's great
geological mysteries.

378
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:04,400
So Charles Darwin who got so much
right, actually got this wrong?

379
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:05,920
Yeah, he sees it as a blunder.

380
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:10,560
Experiencing one of Britain's most
stunning journeys by steam train.

381
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,040
The Jacobite has panted its way
up the steep incline,

382
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:20,080
somehow the wheels gripping
the wet rails and now we're on the
wonderful Glenfinnan viaduct.

383
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:22,760
And admiring Ben Nevis, where
Victorian scientists went

384
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:26,600
to extraordinary lengths
in their quest for knowledge.

385
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:30,000
We're talking about people going up
to take readings. Is that right?

386
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,880
They didn't have to go up there,
they actually had to live up there.

387
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,040
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388
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,080
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