'We're off on a jaunt to explore the islands of Scotland.' Fantastic! Great!
'Inspired by the journey that Dr Johnson and James Boswell made 200 years ago.
It's an unending tapestry of incredibly beautiful, rugged islands.
'Our aim - to get to the island of Harris for the last week of the wild salmon fishing season.
'So far, we've got wet in a freak wave...'
Argh!
'Gone native in kilts...
'Before tossing a hammer in the Highland Games.'
I havenae got the stamina for it!
'In rowing boats...' My boy! Mwah!
'..sailing boats...
'and singing puffin boats...' TOOTING
'..we've made it all the way from Glasgow to Oban.
'Now, the journey continues north, testing our sailing skills...'
I can hear it ripping. '..our survival skills...'
I couldn't last an hour living here. I'd be wandering around the heather naked, clutching a dead rabbit
and a whisky bottle. '..and Rory's skills at blagging free alcohol.
'As we discover some of the wildest...'
Ah! Whoa!
'..and most remote places in Britain.'
The first place we need to get to is the Isle of Mull, and Oban being gateway to the Highlands and Islands,
there's plenty of ferries.
Just answer me one question before we go any further... It's pronounced O-ban. Not Ob-an?
Oban. O-ban?
Oban. Oban. Does it matter, because we're saying goodbye to Oban?
We're leaving Oban, but where are we going to? Mool?
Don't mispronounce Mull.
How can you mispronounce Mull? Mall. No, Mull.
Over the next few days, we'll be travelling nearly 200 miles
from Mull to the Isle of Harris, visiting the breathtaking Isle of Skye
and the Cuillin Mountains along the way.
I want you to do me a favour. I want to take a photograph. Yes, of course.
Do you want me in the photograph? OK. Do you want me in the photograph? This is such a relief.
Why do you want him in the photo? No, no, I want the background.
Get him out of the shot.
Put me on one side.
That's a lovely photograph. Thank you very much.
Is that me there? That's you, yeah.
Look, look... Look at that - have you got any anti-flare?
Our wild man from Borneo.
Sorry, what's your name? My name is Timbuktu. Timbuktim?
Timbuktu. Buktu?
Timbuktu. Timbuktu.
I think you're taking the piss. THEY LAUGH
This is Duart Castle, home of the MacLean clan, whose chief showed
Johnson and Boswell around Mull when they arrived in 1773.
At that time, everything associated with the clans
had been made illegal by the English following the Battle of Culloden.
As a result, Scots began to emigrate in huge numbers.
Boswell and Johnson's book helped make Scotland fashionable again,
and five years after its publication,
the Clans Act was repealed and modern Scottish tourism began.
We've sent Griff to meet the present chief of the MacLean clan, Sir Lachlan MacLean.
You're the chief of the MacLeans. Mm-hm.
What does that involve you having to do?
Look after this place.
But nothing else? You have gatherings of the clan, do you?
Since the war, there has been a great explosion about the clans,
and the main thing is the genealogy.
People want to know where they come from.
This is the bit about a clan having a base like Duart,
is that if you're a MacLean in Argentina - I've just had a MacLean sent his family tree from Argentina,
and he's sent it here because this is where he...
this is the place he knows about.
Right. He may well be a MacLean from Tiree or from Ardnamurchan...
But this is the centre. But this is the hub.
This is like the hub of the wheel.
A very narrow doorway, so I think we're going to have go single file.
Did you see the sign over the ticket office? It's a four star... It's a little Scottish Tourist Board.
They rank their castles. If ever there's a sign that a country had too many castles,
it's when you're grading them like bed and breakfasts. But why hasn't it got the fifth star? No Jacuzzi.
If there was a leisure centre... If this castle came with a spa,
then it would be a five-star castle. Is that not the biggest sporran you've ever seen? That is.
That's just showing off. That's ridiculous. No-one needs that sporran.
Exactly. Below the knees, that one.
Is it just for storage, or is it actually...?
It's to stop the skirt flying up. But then you don't need that. You just need a small series of
lead weights around your genitals and it'll do the job.
Look at this very expensive silverware on show in Duart Castle on Mull.
But you know what the sad thing about this silver collection is? They've put it on the snooker table.
Oh, my God! What a waste. We're in the pool room. Jesus.
Wait a second.
That's four stars right there. That's what it is. Somewhere that has their own billiard room.
From the capital of Mull, Tobermory,
or for the under-fives or parents of under-fives amongst you, Balamory,
we're picking up a boat called Mascotte, due to arrive tomorrow,
so we've time to pick up some supplies for the passage to Skye.
We need something that will keep, something we like,
and something that's Scottish...
I suppose. Luckily, that means just one thing - smoked salmon.
'We've been offered a tour, which means complying with rigorous Scottish health and safety rules.
'Or, in other words, wearing silly hats...'
How does that look, eh?
It's Ena Sharples!
'..and weird beardy bags, called Brucies, for some reason.'
Even the fish will get up and run away in horror. Agh!
OK... They're laughing at us, Griff.
Hello. Is there a Jean here? Am I allowed to shake your hand or is that against health and safety?
I'm Rory, this is Griff. How do you do? Nice to see you.
This is where it all happens? It is, yeah. And what's your job?
What are you doing? We're packing salmon. Do you like smoked salmon yourself? Yes, oh, yes.
How do you resist eating all day then? We don't.
We're not allowed to. Aren't you?
Do you get smoked salmon in the staff canteen?
No, we get a hamper at Christmas and that's it. Oh!
A mix of slowly smouldering beech and oak wood
produces the smoke which passes through trenches and into the ovens.
So this is all the smoking ovens in here.
Different fish in each? Sorry? Different fish?
Yes, different fish. In this box here, kippers.
Oh, look! Breakfast.
Smoked salmon. Beautiful.
And how long do they smoke for?
Smoked salmon, they smoke for two or three days.
'OK, well, we can't wait that long. We've got a boat to catch.'
HE LAUGHS
I'd like some smoked salmon, please.
A big one? Yeah. Just the big one.
One of those. Can I have a smoked salmon pate as well?
'Salmon isn't the only thing these pure waters are famed for.
'Scottish shellfish is flown all over the world.
'To get the freshest scallops possible though, I've elected to pick them up myself,
'and fit in a bit of diving in the process - once I squeeze into the suit.
'The water may be pure, but it's also incredibly cold.
'But I'm in good hands with ex-Navy diver Liam.'
Liam, how cold is it out there? It's 12 degrees. 12 degrees. Lovely.
We're going dry-suit diving, which means no water should get under the three layers of furry clothing
I'm wearing underneath. Underneath this romper suit,
I have a kind of mountaineer's Thinsulate layer, and also like
a tracksuit bottom, tracky thing that you'd wear around the house.
So I'm very snug at the moment. How many scallops are we going to get down there?
At least one. We're bringing one down, are we?
We're going fishing, we're not going catching. Is that for me scallops, is it?
The normal routine, we wouldn't normally fish in the summertime anywhere near Oban. Yeah.
The fish are under so much pressure.
There's hundreds of divers come every week to Oban, leisure divers.
They come to Oban and they all take two clams each.
But that's 200 clams a day.
That's been going on for 50 years.
My current thing that I say is care, conserve and catch.
If you don't care, you won't conserve. If you don't conserve, you'll soon stop catching.
So we should probably leave what's down there down there?
No, they're put there for our use. But to be used wisely.
Listen, will we get suited up? Will we do this?
Ready to go down? You'll enjoy it. It's fine. I'm looking forward to seeing them.
'Divers are a special breed of people -
'hardy, resilient, and usually about a foot shorter than me.'
I think that's as big as it gets, this suit.
That's an XXL. That's an XXL, is it?
Yeah, well, I need more Xs than that.
This is the birth canal.
There we go. You'll be fine, man. One of the great pleasures of diving
in the tropics in a wetsuit is that if you need to go, you can just go.
It's one of the guilty secrets of all divers, is the moment of calm when you see us in the water, going...
Yeah. You don't do that in a dry suit. It's got nowhere to go.
All right?
Are we rolling over backwards?
Of course, in this murky underwater world, with all the breathing apparatus, it's impossible to talk.
So for those of you who don't understand the special sign language we divers use, I will translate.
For example, that means "excellent".
Rubbing your tummy means "yummy yummy".
That means, "I'd like to eat some of these scallops quickly,
"thank you very much."
"Mmm, garlic butter."
"Would sir like to try the wine?"
"Delightful."
"Oh, some of this seafood is very fresh."
There he goes!
And after a brief chase, he's in the bag.
The most important sign of all is, "Let's get out of the cold water."
We've called for Sandy, the friendly, fast-water taxi,
to take us to Tobermory to pick up Mascotte.
But on the way, we've decided to drop in on one of the most spectacular caves in the UK,
on the island of Staffa, and the inspiration for one of
Felix Mendelssohn's most famous symphonies.
We have one great advantage over Mendelssohn.
We're still alive.
Apart from that, it's the fact that we can get there in 20 minutes flat.
How does the Mendelssohn go again?
RORY HUMS "FINGAL'S CAVE" BY FELIX MENDELSSOHN
That's The Ride Of The Valkyries. That's what?
Isn't that The Ride Of The Valkyries? Is it?
No, the Ride Of The Valkyries is...
THEY HUM "THE RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES" BY RICHARD WAGNER
That's better.
MUSIC: "FINGAL'S CAVE" BY FELIX MENDELSSOHN
Mendelssohn wasn't the only visitor to this island in the middle of nowhere.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Jules Verne, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Turner, Queen Victoria,
and of course Boswell and Johnson made the hazardous trip here.
The Vikings knew about it. It only became famous because of Joseph Banks,
the famous naturalist who'd gone with Captain Cook
to the South Seas, who then got famous and went around,
and everything he saw, he pointed out and said,
"Oh, that's a very interesting natural phenomenon,"
and presumably he came up here and looked at this very interesting natural phenomenon
and pronounced that it was a natural phenomenon
and not a sort of legendary phenomenon.
Is this now officially the longest walk on television ever?
'Indeed it is natural, formed when a massive lava cools
'and shrinks into these hexagonal columns, giving this characteristic, almost man-made look.'
Oh, my God. No, it's more like a cathedral than you were saying.
It looks like a '60s cathedral, though.
Yeah, Liverpool Cathedral, yeah. Or Coventry.
It's a little bit more...
It's a little bit gloomy and bleak.
It's certainly gloomy. It's not a happy cave.
It's like the last word in isolation. From here,
the only thing you can see is the entrance of the cave or out towards the Atlantic.
What else did Mendelssohn write?
He wrote a very famous violin concerto.
How did that go? Which everybody knows.
Do they know it? How does it go? RORY HUMS A TUNE
It doesn't go anything like that.
How about... RORY HUMS A TUNE
Oh, that's Mozart! Mozart again. Do you want to hear it?
RORY HUMS A TUNE That's Tchaikovsky.
Do you want to hear Mendelssohn's violin concerto?
Yeah, go on. I'll put you out your misery.
STEREO PLAYS "VIOLIN CONCERTO IN E MINOR (OP.64)" BY FELIX MENDELSSOHN
THEY HUM ALONG
The island of Staffa was bought in 1986 by a New York businessman
to give to his wife for her 60th birthday.
She took one look at it and gave it to the National Trust.
Perhaps he should have tried chocolates.
At the main town of Mull, Tobermory, Mascotte has finally arrived.
So, while the others pick up more boring things like tea and coffee,
I'm continuing my quest to try every distillery in Scotland.
The Tobermory distillery is the only one on Mull.
By now I'm getting an old hand...
with calluses on it.
Despite the others thinking that I'm just looking for
free samples, I'm still learning, this time from master distiller Ian.
I always think the best way to enjoy whisky, is to think,
"That whisky has been locked up in there for 15 years."
When you taste it, we like to say to give the whisky a second
for every year it's been in the cask before you swallow it.
15 seconds? 15 seconds. I don't think I can wait that long!
But believe me, it'll be worth it. Let's try it.
Put your stopwatch on.
OK. That is a good experience.
What happens there is you're getting to smell the whisky as well, because it goes right up
the back of your nose, it comes back down again. You get the full experience,
all the flavour and aroma in one go.
Now, I know comparisons are odious, Ian, but I've been to a few distilleries,
and they've always showered me with free gifts, a bottle of whisky, malt, single malt, a blend,
do you know what I'm saying?
I do. I'm quite sure I could organise a nice bottle of Tobermory for you,
but I've got a little job I'd like you to do first.
There's no free bottle of Scotch.
Turns out Ian's running behind on some of his local deliveries.
Whisky earned, it's time to board Mascotte.
Hello.
How are you?
'Yes, it's not difficult to see how Rory spent the day.
'Not a great first impression for skipper Richard, who's coming with us to help sail this beast of a boat.'
What sort of boat is she?
She's a Bristol Channel pilot cutter, built in Newport in 1904.
'The boat's rigging is all original.
'Everything is done by block and tackle.
'Not a winch in sight.'
It's excellent.
It's just the most beautifully designed piece of work, this boat.
It's an extremely efficient boat, built to shoot out at great speed to meet the incoming vessels
coming across the Atlantic, and then put a pilot aboard. That was a competitive business.
Each pilot would be racing to be the first boat
that greeted the big boat coming in and put their pilot aboard.
This ship would only have three guys left to board it to sail it,
but that's a heavy job.
We're only four now.
These are massive sails, massive spars, and it's back-breaking work.
There was no real need to elbow me in the head, was there?!
It's a test of physical strength.
These boys, they like to show off their physical strength.
Well, today we'll see how far they can go.
We can set up to eight sails on this boat.
The main weighs in at nearly a tonne.
There are 500 metres of rope.
It takes years to learn how to sail her properly.
But luckily we're just motoring out of the harbour.
And skipper Richard has left me in charge.
Nothing too difficult here.
Take it out of gear, you've run over a buoy.
Griff ran into some sort of marine thing.
I think it's actually too early to blame Griff 100%. It's never too early to blame Griff.
OK, fair enough. It's caught around the prop.
Did you get a shot of Griff leaning over with his arse in the air because he ran over something?
'That something is a lobster pot attached to a buoy.
'And all of that is now attached to our propeller.'
Yeah, well, this is your standard day in a boat, really, to be honest.
If we let him go, we own the boat.
That's the rule of the sea.
Here's a question for you.
Generally, how far have we moved in the last hour?
In the time that we've been struggling with the buoy, we have moved far enough
so that Balamory...is still there!
Eventually, we untangled the buoy.
Oh! We have the buoy! We have it, we have the buoy!
I want to get off this boat!
But how exciting, running over a buoy. An unplanned jeopardy.
Coming up in part two...
buoy trouble! At the end of the day, Griff, do you think we have lost Richard's confidence?
Do you think he no longer trusts us?
I think we shall find out as the voyage progresses!
With an hour and a half lost to the lobsters, we now need to get moving.
So choosing to put Dara at the helm is an interesting choice from skipper, Richard.
And then when you tell me, I will push her all the way to there
in order to swing her round back over there? Yeah.
Is it wise to put Dara at the helm, do you think?
Well...
It's somebody else's turn to run into a buoy now. Yeah, OK.
The wind's coming this way, and I want it eventually so the wind is going that way.
Obviously, no-one has told Richard that in five series of Three Men, this is only the second time
Dara has been allowed to take the helm.
I'm just thankful it's not my boat.
This looks like I'm doing nothing, doesn't it?
Always looking.
OK, then, Dara, this is your moment!
Oh, we're going downwind, Captain! Good man.
Oh, she's fighting! That's a good course, Dara.
Hold it straight. Holding the course straight!
In my time on the boat, number of buoys hit - zero!
Number of buoys Griff hit - one.
Who's the winner there?
Well, I didn't even know it was a competition!
I could have hit hundreds if I'd wanted to!
We're going in exactly the opposite direction from Dr Johnson!
And Boswell.
Who came in this way, came down to...
..to Mull
and spent a little bit of time on Mull,
visited Ulva, where they were interested to find that the "droit de seigneur",
the right of the Laird of Ulva
to have the first night
with any newly-married woman, still existed.
Something that Rory, if he'd only read the book, would have delighted in.
But he...He read the...
But he read the introduction!
We could have had a four-hour monologue out of Rory on that, I would have thought!
Despite having a total novice at the helm, we are making good progress.
Is this Ardnamurchan Point?
This is Ardnamurchan Point, the most westerly point in mainland Britain.
More westerly than Land's End, which surprises me. It surprises me.
So, you see where that boat is, Dara? Bring her down over there where that boat is.
Sorry, Rory. The cockpit is a bit...
"Ardramurchan" means "the hill of the great sea"
and it's at this point that we enter the real wilderness of Scotland.
From now on, there are no more marinas.
The landscape becomes more rugged, the sea more cruel,
and the tides more unpredictable.
It was in these waters that Boswell
and Johnson got caught in a huge storm that blew them way off course.
I'm sitting down here with my good friend, Dara, and we're just in a very, very good zone.
You know, it's postlunch,
and the Tobermory has been flowing.
As you can see,
Dara is so excited at being on a beautifully old-fashioned sailing boat,
in the most beautiful part of Britain,
that he's crashed out completely.
Griff's up on deck,
probably ranting about us.
It's the only time I get to really sing my own songs, and here's another one!
# And I wake up and she's sleeping... #
So, we've got the wind behind us, and we're passing through...
..some of the most romantic...
..and world-famous, legendary seascape in the world.
There's Eigg,
and there's Muck, the Isle of Muck.
And through there, in the rain,
that's Rum.
Just the most magn... We will never pass this way again, possibly.
Certainly not in such a beautiful boat.
And those two are down below,
titting about.
Mind you, it's started to rain now, so perhaps one of them should have a go,
and I'll go and tit about for a bit.
I've actually had enough time sitting up here, staring at the legendary landscape, quite honestly.
It's very samey.
After a day's sail, we have to find a sheltered bay to overnight in.
And there's not many of those round here, so we've ended up at the most
notoriously difficult place to navigate into.
So, what we're trying to do is squeeze a 60-foot yacht... boat into a 70-foot space.
Yeah. Yeah.
I thought about showing you on the chart beforehand, but I thought
that would only make you nervous, so, we'll look at it afterwards.
OK. That will still make us nervous, even afterwards!
It's soon clear just how wild and remote this place really is.
Can you imagine living out here?
I couldn't last an hour, living out here,
before I'd go stark-raving mad. I'd be wandering round the heather, naked,
clutching a dead rabbit and a whisky bottle.
Are you ready? Yeah, yeah.
Wow! Dara O Briain! Look at this!
Scallops in their own shell,
with bacon and black pudding.
I think the actual term is "hand-dived" scallops.
Yes. These are the ones I went down for.
Well, let's see how they taste. The taste test.
And if I've ruined them in the way I cooked them, then I'll be really annoyed. Mmm!
Mmm.
That's a plateful of flavour!
I like the colour, the scallops are cooked very beautifully.
In their own shell.
The physical I had to do in order to get health and safety clearance to do the dive, took an hour and a half.
I am now cleared to dive on an oil rig.
Was there any health and safety involved in going to the distillery? No.
They didn't take your blood pressure?
They didn't check if you could drink the stuff?
No hard hats, no steel toecaps, no anything.
Did you have to wear any luminous gear? Only on my face.
The problem with being so remote is there's no phone reception, TV, or anything else.
So we have to settle for the classic combination of a bottle of whisky, a pack of cards, and each other.
'Oh, God.'
He's keeping you in, Dara, he's sucking you in!
All in. This is the big one.
Well done, Dara!
Thank you very much. Lovely.
You stinking, filthy, lily-livered coward, Griff!
But there's plenty of time, Rory. The night is young.
Next morning, we stop at the Knoydart Peninsula,
the UK's last proper wilderness, and not accessible by road.
I mean, how large is the largest wilderness in the UK?
30 miles in every direction.
If you stand in the middle of it, it's apparently 30 miles in every direction. Is that right? Mmm.
Does this count as wilderness right here?
We're on the edge of the wilderness, so if there is a middle,
it must be 60 miles of wilderness in that direction.
Presumably there's a sign saying "Welcome to the wilderness"? I hope so.
Having eaten everything on board the night before, we've met up
with Graham - a wilderness expert - who's promised to find us our next meal.
What are we looking for then? Define protein.
Well, we're looking for, essentially, carbohydrates - fats, minerals and protein.
Again, here's something we could use -
this one here - three leaf.
This is something tasty. This is wood sorrel.
We can just eat that? Chew a bit.
'Graham teaches survival skills and recently spent two months
'on a remote Scottish island, living on what he could find, so he should know what we can and can't eat.'
Yeah, so, mushrooms, can we eat those?
You've got to be careful. Like all plants and fungi, you've got to be careful
with what you eat. If you don't know it, don't eat it.
Do you know the best ones? Would you recognise boletus and all those wonderful mushrooms?
Yeah. This is a boletus here. Is it?
That one's inedible.
And, someone who does not know the good or bad? Stay away from them.
If you don't know, the water dropworts, the hemlocks,
digitalis, belladonnas, the monkshood, will kill you.
And so will a lot of the amanita family and so on. It's not worth it. OK.
Insects. Can we eat insects? You can eat insects, if you want.
We could rummage around for some woodlice.
We could eat them raw. We could maybe forage for some worms, which are full of protein.
We don't eat that in the Western world.
I'm going to show you some stuff I've actually gathered earlier.
OK. And then I want to challenge youse to go down on to the shoreline
and gather some edibles, which we'll cook up later. OK.
Mussels. Everybody knows about mussels.
You've probably had that with wine and garlic. Also razor clams.
This is a good food source.
We can dig for these in the sand. Limpets.
A lot of people don't eat these.
They don't see them as a suitable food source.
They're actually quite tasty. Do you like squid calamari? Hmmm.
These are the same. We could simply just cook them
in hot rocks or turn them upside down and cook them in a little pot.
Gentlemen, do youse want to head off and see what you can gather? OK.
What are you waiting for then?
Fair enough. I'll catch youse later.
Yeah, yeah. See you later.
I think, I guess you've just got to start digging underneath.
That's the crab.
I guess we could eat him.
Winkles. That's a winkle. You can eat those if you've got a pin.
I can't see there's any mussels.
Any time you come across a mussel, basically there are dozens of mussels, or have been,
and the sea gulls have been here and eaten them all.
Sticks, sticks, sticks, moss.
Sticks and moss. How are you getting on?
I'm only seeing sticks and moss.
I don't want to eat either sticks or moss.
You've got to take your eyes off the ground sometime.
There's more food up the way also.
This tree, for example, is a lime tree.
This is a useful tree.
It's a bit late in the year, but it's still edible. In the springtime,
these are lovely and succulent.
You could use these as woodland salad.
It will also provide us with flowers we could turn into a tea.
How long would I survive? Look at me!
I'm soft and metropolitan. How long would I survive?
Ah, it's a matter... Is it even hours? Five minutes.
Jesus! Let's find some roots.
Let's have a wander.
Another mussel! A genuine mussel.
Two genuine mussels.
Small mussels, but they are mussels.
That's good. This is great.
I found a bit of sorrel, Griff has a couple of shellfish.
Our wilderness meal is looking a little SLIMMING at this stage. This is what you have got.
Winkles, mussels...
With a bit of luck, Rory has done better.
If not, we could always eat him.
Is that enough protein to survive for a day?
It would get you by. For a day, or for lunch?
What you've basically done is misjudged the tide.
A lot of wilderness survivors survive in the wilderness at the right time.
We're here and we've arrived in the wilderness at an inconvenient time for the wilderness.
Graham shows us the prehistoric way of starting a fire,
using part of a prehistoric violin.
Fire. Brilliant!
That's fantastic.
Can you also make a wheel?
DARA LAUGHS
I could carve you a wheel. I've walked absolutely miles.
Good news. Just in time to get the fire going.
I hope you're grateful.
Sweet and sour chicken and rice.
You're a very good forager(!) From the wilderness store.
I think I'd prefer to eat my dead limpet.
The wilderness shop is in the wilderness village.
It's there to service the few who live here, alongside the wilderness post office and the wilderness pub.
Let's face it, that wasn't that filling a meal, was it?
We survived. We did survive. We survived our morning in the woods.
It's nice to know the remotest and most authentic
piece of wilderness in Britain still has a very good pub.
A really excellent pub. This is the remotest pub in mainland Britain.
You can only get to here by boat.
I'm drinking the remotest pint of lager in Britain.
Yes, that you'll ever have. It's so remote, it's so remote
that Hugh Dennis and Oz Clarke are coming here in two weeks' time to film another BBC show.
Shall we leave them a message! I was going to. "Dear Hugh...
"Dear Hugh and Oz, we were here first!
"Love, Three Men." Remote, isn't it?
THEY LAUGH
Do you know if Boswell and Johnson, do you remember them? Did they come here?
No, I don't think they did.
They went... Didn't they go to Skye?
They went to Skye and got blown off course.
Then they went into Coll, which is too remote for us to visit.
We should check behind the bar to see if there's a letter
from Dr Johnson saying, "Dear Three Men, bad luck."
Here's to remoteness. Thank you.
Thank you. Cheers!
On the next leg of our journey to Skye, I've agreed to give a friend a lift. He's not due in until later.
What do you do in remotest Scotland to kill time? You play golf.
I have played golf when I was 12.
Well, you never lose it. Really?
I understand the basic principles of golf. Tell me this, Griff?
Why do they give you so many bats?
I remember that. Each of these are angled at different angles.
That's for ice. That's what you play it on snow.
Who's going to go first, then?
I think he's... How hard do you hit it if you want it to go up there?
It depends how far you want to putt it.
I don't think that's going to be an issue.
I don't want to do this.
I'll do it. Do you want somebody has to start?
No, I might enjoy it.
If I enjoy it, I'll find myself playing golf for the rest of my life.
Nice. Nice.
'If it wasn't already obvious, none of us really play golf.'
Where did it go? Where did it go?
'Because the modern game was invented in Scotland...'
I'm enjoying this. It's going to be a long afternoon.
'And there are more golf courses per capita
'than anywhere else in the world, it seems the obvious place to start.'
Where did it go?
Who knows where it went?
It went up.
Good shot! What a great game golf is.
Isn't it?
'Golf etiquette dictates that the player furthest from the hole plays first.'
Am I still the furthest away?
Possibly, yes. Even further.
'Somehow it always seems to be my turn to play.'
Oh, good!
This first hole, by the way, is a par-three.
You get to go again then.
Longer, slower holes will follow.
10.
Five.
Amazingly, that's only one hole done.
What did you get?
I got five.
What did you get, Rory? Seven.
Seven. What did you get? Nine.
10. 11.
Anything above that?
OK. That was par-three.
OK, at the moment you are seven over par for the first hole.
This would not be regarded as a good start. You're two over par.
I'm not saying I'm any...
And you're five over par.
I understand. I do understand I didn't do very well at that hole.
I had worked that out, actually. Will you do better at the second hole?
It depends how bullying you get.
Oh, this golf is so straight-laced. I spent my youth in Ireland playing hurling.
This is how you should strike a ball.
Aah! Ha-ha!
That's very good. Where did that end up?
About 250 yards out that way. That's fantastic!
Aah!
Sorry, sorry! What hole is that?
Seventh. That's the seventh hole. OK.
With one shot you've managed to jump five holes ahead. It saves time.
That means you get nothing for two, three, four, five and six.
Wow! You're ahead of par already.
When Rory nearly decapitates a fellow golfer, we decide we're a danger
to everyone else and head back to the boat where we can only be a danger to ourselves.
I think we should make this gorgeously Scottish scene
even more Scottish with a wee skirl of the pipes.
OK.
HE DRUMS
THEY IMITATE BAGPIPE DRONE
THEY PLAY "SCOTLAND THE BRAVE"
We set off for Skye and en route, we're picking up my friend, comedian and mountain climber, Ed Byrne.
The things I do for you.
Middle of the boat.
Are you sure? Should I not try and counteract your massive weight?
Not middle-middle, I mean front middle.
Less of the "massive weight". I'm giving you a lift.
Ready to go? I am, yeah.
And around we go.
Welcome to Scotland.
How's the climbing going?
It's good. The weather's not fantastic.
No, I can't see a mountain at the moment. The visibility is poor.
'Ed is a man on a mission. He wants to climb a series of mountains called the Munros in Scotland.
'The Cuillin mountains of Skye have 12 such peaks and the easiest way to get there is by boat.'
What are the Munros?
The Munros are mountains in Scotland over 3,000 ft.
They were first catalogued by a guy called Sir Hugh Munro.
As I say, I think it's a joke the Scottish play on the rest of us.
3,000 ft is about the highest a Scottish cloud tends to sit.
You hike all day and see nothing.
There's 284 of them. How many have you climbed?
I'd done 48 now.
That's good! You can walk them all apart from one, which is called
the Inaccessible Pinnacle, or the "In Pin" for short.
It's the only one you have to use ropes and you have to abseil back down it and stuff.
What's this called, doing all the Munros?
It's called Munro bagging.
Are you a "Munro bagger"? Yes, or "completer".
Have you started to annoy each other yet?
About four seasons ago, I think.
Have you discovered just how very ticklish Dara is?
Incredibly. Like this.
That would... That would while away hours on end.
Just knowing you can just do that.
Do you want to steer the boat while you're here?
If I do, I'll crash it, surely.
I'm totally turning the boat now. You are.
This massive boat is moving with me just moving this little stick.
See, you're loving it, aren't you? Loving it.
It's a piece of piss. Yeah.
You realise that by sitting at the back of the boat with me,
you're allowing Griff and Ed to talk about you.
Yeah, I know. They're bitching about me.
I can see Dara going, "I have an idea.
"Three men and a private jet."
That was my Dara impression, did you like that?
"Er... Er..."
Why don't they both go up the mountain? That's a perfect solution.
It would mean that Ed has Griff's company and we don't,
which is perfect. Ed's still at the point where he sees Griff's company as a happy novelty.
Are you enjoying it, Ed?
I am. I'm already quite aware of alliances having been formed.
I feel like I'm a pawn in a game here.
I'm being drawn into a maelstrom of bitchiness and gossip already.
Griff would be going, "Rory's a stirrer. He's a stirrer, is Rory."
THEY LAUGH
Remember who brought you on the boat. Don't forget that.
Look at that remote cottage. That is remote. That cottage there.
Beautiful sandy beach. We're about to visit... This is interesting.
We're about to visit a place which is described in the handbook as
"the most awesome place on earth". Right?
That's a hell of a claim.
Let's just wait and see, shall we?
It is beginning to clear up. I think it's going to be all right. I think I might even get a view.
Yeah.
What is the best way to see the Highlands?
Is it by boat, car, microlight?
What would actually take in this kind of landscape?
You're asking that question of a hill walker.
The best way to see the landscape is to walk it, in my opinion.
It's the only way to truly participate with the landscape.
I don't want to participate. What's the best way to SEE the landscape?
From the landscape, I feel.
One of the coolest things when you go Munro bagging,
and you know you've set your sights on doing them all,
is to stand on the top of one and you look out and you go,
"Oh, that's where I was last month and that's where I'm going to be someday!"
Will it give you a sense of ownership of the Highlands when you've done it?
I don't know about "ownership". Kinship maybe.
That's better. That's nice.
I like that. A oneness.
A sense of oneness. Will you get a badge?
I'll make one myself. "I have oneness with the Highlands"
My wife is stitching me a badge as we speak.
We're in luck.
The famously cloud-covered Cuillin have decided to show themselves to us today.
At Loch Scavaig we transfer to the shore.
From there, it's a short walk to Loch Coruisk.
The high, inaccessible Munros,
tower over this freshwater lake so it's clearly time for the rest of us to say goodbye to the intrepid Ed.
What do we think, boys, on an awesome scale of 0-10? Seven.
It's quite awesome. It's not...
It's awesome that we can see it because usually you can't see anything
because of the mist and fog and cloud.
It's very good. It gets more awesome
the further in you go, I would have said.
Ed, I think I should come with you. I feel bad about you going off...
Griff, I would love you to come with me. I enjoyed your mountain show with great glee.
We'd love him to go with you.
You don't even have a sandwich in your pocket.
I've only got enough stuff to look after myself.
I'm not a qualified mountain leader.
I'm not taking somebody who doesn't even have a power bar on him into the mountains.
Enjoy the rest of your journey.
We shall miss you.
Catch a salmon for me.
Yeah, we'll name it Ed.
And then release it. And eat it.
ED LAUGHS
We'll release it into the wild, like we're doing to you.
Fly away, little Ed! Fly away!
Go to the top and spawn. All right.
Thanks for the lift. No problem.
See you! What a very nice man!
Never rated his work. NEVER rated his work.
I'm not saying, honestly, Dara.
I'm just saying, if anything terrible were to happen to you,
like you were to slip, he would be a good...
He'll be a seamless... We wouldn't want you to go, but in case you fell off the boat or something like that.
With Ed dropped, we need to continue north.
So far we've travelled 100 miles in four days, but the sailing isn't getting any easier
or perhaps we're not getting any better at it.
Hang on! It's caught on something. Hang on. It's caught on something.
It's caught on something. I can hear it ripping.
It's caught on the anchor.
The trouble is we have another 100 miles to get past Skye and end up on Harris and only one day left.
OK. Put the tiller right up towards you.
Here it comes.
Hours of doing nothing.
30 seconds of the hardest work available.
OK, we're going to haul away on that now, Griff.
Despite favourable weather and my superior helmsmanship,
and Rory actually doing some work for a change,
we're still not going to make it to Harris without a little help.
I say a little, I mean MASSIVE.
We're hitching a lift with this - the Scottish Fisheries Protection vessel.
Used to fast launches in pursuit of naughty fishermen, the crew
of the Norna don't mess about
when they're doing boat-to-boat transfers.
Thanks to a bit of Scottish muscle, we're now on course
to reach our destination, in good time.
How sweet is that?! It's great, isn't it? That's a fantastic way to...!
It was great.
How many are you on board? One minute we're on the sea, we're on a boat now. Ship, ship.
Ship, got to remember that. Sorry!
You're the captain.
That's right. The ship's master. Do I call you captain?
You call me Don, actually. Everybody else does on here.
Here we are on the Norna from Leith in Edinburgh.
"Fisheries Protection", what does that actually mean, in a nutshell?
We're looking after the fisheries for Scotland and Europe.
We're checking the fishermen are sticking to all the rules and regulations.
Do you let English boats up here? Oh, we do, yes.
That's very sweet of you.
More importantly, where are we going today? We're heading for Orkney now.
Orkney? That's right.
You couldn't do us a favour, could you?
What would that be? You couldn't drop us at Harris?
I don't think so. You'd have to persuade me one way.
While we were on Skye, I took a little visit to the only distillery on Skye
and I'd like to present you with this lovely bottle of Talisker.
In exchange for dropping us at Harris and not taking us to the Orkneys.
I think this might do the trick. That's very kind of you.
I was going to say, could you have a glass of it?
Obviously, we want it back.
HE LAUGHS
Don is a good sport. The whisky ends up in a charity raffle and he's happy to drop us en route.
Modern boats, you've got to love them.
'Whilst we have a leisurely lunch with the captain,
'the boat does all hard work and we're soon at journey's end.'
Ammhuinnsuidhe Castle was built as a hunting lodge.
It's one of the last places to fish for wild salmon in Scotland.
In a week's time, the salmon will start making their way back to the spawning grounds.
We'll be fly-fishing and, despite being in deepest, darkest Scotland, our ghillie is a Welshman.
Would you believe it?
So, we'll go by here first to start with.
What we want to achieve is put in that line and presenting that line into the current of the water.
How many fish are out there? There could be 200-300 fish, ready to make their run up the gorge
So, they've come in on the tide and they'll be waiting in this current
for the good oxygenated water
and the strength and power of the salmon and sea trout is phenomenal.
They're pure muscle.
So, there are plenty of fish in this bit of sea.
The question remains, how do we get hold of one? If you can imagine, that line will go out.
The current will swing through.
You will then strip it back, the line, and the fish then, if it sees it and wants to take it,
the flies go in there and he'll want to roll and take the fly.
'Yes. I have to say Russell may know what he's talking about
'but the dark art of fly-fishing isn't much clearer to me.'
Just ease off with the reel and then it'll...
You'll hook it and play it then obviously it's used to tire the fish out.
Do you expect us to catch salmon today, given that we are inexperienced?
This is the whole thing.
It's all about putting the fly in the water.
If the fly's in the water, you've got a chance to catch salmon.
Are the salmon there all night?
They'll be here all night until... Yeah. We might need...
Time to put our lack of knowledge into practice.
There. It's different.
It always looks easier when someone else does it. It really is easy.
I don't think it's very dangerous for the salmon, but I think it's quite dangerous for me.
If I were to stick myself down there and enter in somewhere between these two flicking their...
flicking their lines around...
I think perhaps I'll just wait until Rory's caught a couple
and then I shall step down and do my own fishing in my own time.
That'll be in about a couple of weeks, I should think.
You're getting it there.
Keep trying and you'll get it.
We're just going to give Griff a go, a minute, Rory.
I fancy being closer to the water.
Be careful. It's slippery. It is slippery, but I can still...
It's all right.
Now, I've got to get it dangling properly...
'Casting is not easy, but there are other problems.'
BUZZING
I'm not sure how much fun this is for me, but you get a real sense of the food chain.
They are salmon.
We catch them. We eat them.
But they are midges, they eat us.
There are midges in my eyes, midges in my ears, midges in my hair.
If I mush them around, there are midges all over my face and my hands, all over my jacket.
There are literally thousands of the things.
The number one reason, sadly, that people don't come back to Scotland for a holiday - midges.
I'm flinging it out here.
I know Griff would love to catch a fish and all, but it's a tough enough life for a salmon.
Look at the jumping you have to do, just to get its end away!
A flip and a swim, a jump, a jump, a jump and a swim.
It changes its entire metabolism
from saltwater to freshwater
Why should I be yet another impediment to that?
I'm just going to do this for a while.
And this.
GOD!
Watch your back-cast, Griff, would you?
Just watch yourself, Rory. OK.
Remember, that's it!
Get movement in the water with the fly.
That's it.
Always make sure there's no-one behind you when casting.
Wait a minute! You're on fish.
I'm on fish. He's on a fish. What do I do?
Fish! Let it go, let it go.
'Apparently I mustn't fight the fish too much or it'll win.
'When it wants to swim away, I must give it some line.
When it swims towards me, I pull it in.
When it wants to run, let the reel go.
I don't want him to go. Just keep it tight.
This is known as "playing" the fish.
Is that yours? I've got one, yeah.
I'm not sure how much fun the fish is having.
Not too tight. Let him run.
How exciting is this, Dara?
It's coming in this way. Let's get him, let's get him.
Wahey!
That's a nice sea trout.
Well done!
That's a sea trout.
Record smallest sea trout.
Man takes pride in small fish.
For the sake of perspective, wow, that is a big fish!
It's actually not that big.
But that's not the last of the excitement for Griff as there's a long-standing tradition
at Ammhuinnsuidhe Castle, that when you catch a big fish,
you can draw it on a wall in the house so it can live on in infamy.
These are the sizes of the ones that people...
Actually the sea trout are quite big, aren't they? They are.
9½ lbs. Look!
Somebody's drawn something here.
That's disgraceful. That's awful.
That's terrible somebody wrote that.
Griff Rhys Jones, 11 oz.
That's not only belittling me, that's belittling my fish,
which is actually that big.
See how much better that looks!
We couldn't find space to fit your gigantic fish on the wall so we had to draw it to scale.
Look, it's got a little smile on it!
On most fishing programmes on television, you should kiss the fish. I intend to eat the fish.
Kiss it! Not eat it. Kiss it, why?
That's what they do on fishing programmes.
They don't. I'll kiss it. Hold it up!
Mouth first. Lovely!
Lovely.
Eurgh! I'm not eating this now.
I'm not kissing you! Oh, dear!
That was horrible. An unnecessary thing to do.
That was revolting.
And it didn't turn into a princess so we'd better eat it.
We're going to prepare it a way that even we can manage - raw, as sushi.
That's the freshest fish I've ever had.
What did we do before the Scots invented sashimi?
This is about the furthest west we're going to get. This is the end of our trip.
It's the end. Another journey over.
What would you take from it?
For me, I have to say,
if Boswell and Johnson took that journey again
they would be surprised at how wild and extraordinary the place still is.
How rugged and unspoilt, really terrific. You go through that.
The only thing that spoils it is the huge number of tourists following in their footsteps.
This is the longest journey we've done.
This is longer than we quaffed Ireland, just going from Greenock and all the way up here.
In distance? In distance, this is the longest journey we've ever done.
We've remained within the Highlands.
For a man who only knows Edinburgh and Glasgow and the odd trip
to Inverness and Aberdeen, it's an eye-opener.
The sheer vastness. An extraordinary place. What about you, Rory? What did you get from it?
Three bottles of Talisker, 15-year-old Tobermory,
96 miniatures of Isle of Jura,
a lovely Oban, I think that's a Pinot Noir aged 15-year-old.
What else? A packet of oatcakes...
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