All language subtitles for 1 1 The.Worlds.Most.Beautiful.Landscapes.S01E07.480p

Right across our planet, there is an
incredible variety of astonishing

landscapes.

One of the most beautiful anywhere in
the world is Northern Ireland's Causeway

Coast.

Piles of breathtaking cliffs arising
from the sea.

A coastline of wonders that has stood
here for millions of years before

walked this coast.

Two fragments of dinosaur bone have been
found here at the Gobbins in these

Jurassic clades, and these are the only
dinosaurs known from anywhere in

Ireland.

This coastline boasts some of the most
extraordinary natural phenomena

These incredible stepping stones, which
they really almost don't look natural.

They look like something man -made by a
giant with a hammer and a chisel.

And an abundant array of species have
blossomed here.

When you look around, the scenery, the
people, the heritage, the glances are

part of my DNA.

We're going to take you on a journey
along the Irish Causeway Coast to

admire its wonders and discover

its secrets.

Our journey begins at the great city of
Londonderry, or Derry, on the north

coast of Northern Ireland.

The city sits on the calm waters of Loch
Foyle, but seafarers have a route

through a narrow passage straight out to
the wilds of the Atlantic Ocean.

Viewed from space, The unusual shape of
the lock is striking.

Almost fully encircled by land, it has a
tiny opening leading into the North

Atlantic Sea at the top of the estuary.

Our journey takes us east along one of
the most incredible coastlines anywhere.

Rare birds relish this landscape, like
the black -tailed godwit and the

cormorant, a diving bird who feeds off
these shores.

From Loch Foyle, the earth rises steeply
upwards.

It's our first sight of the great rock
formations that shape the whole

of Northern Ireland.

the aftermath of a series of great
volcanic eruptions that we know by the

prosaic name of the Antrim Plateau.

And the first great peak, rising 400
metres above the sea, is Mount Benevena.

On a clear day, there are spectacular
panoramic views from here for miles.

down to the peninsula of the McGilligan
Point and across to Donegal Beyond.

Benevena is a special area of
conservation and has been recognised for

coniferous juniper trees and a unique
assemblage of arctic alpine plants.

The summit's hard impermeable rock is
perfect for retaining water and a lake

formed, the ideal habitat for trout.

From Benevena's lookout point, Downhill
House and Mussenden Temple stand out on

the coast below.

Built in 1780 for the Bishop of Derry,
the house and temple are perched on the

edge of this exposed headland.

But the estate suffered a devastating
fire in 1851, and the landscape here has

almost engulfed it.

The temple once served as a library for
the bishop's niece.

But today it looks certain to tumble
down the cliffs and into the sea.

What awaits us only a little further
east along the coast is a natural

phenomenon that seems to come from a
vividly imagined dream.

A place that has captured the
imagination of everyone who sees it.

for many centuries past.

We know it today by its mythological
name, the Giant's Causeway.

The sheer strangeness of this place
defies belief.

Writer Lolly Spence has found that an
interest in the Giant's Causeway has

into more of an obsession.

She finds herself returning here again
and again.

I have grown up and lived and worked in
Northern Ireland all my life.

My mother's family came across from
Scotland to live on the Antrim coast,

over the water behind us here.

And this Antrim coast road has really
been part of my upbringing.

800 miles to the north, we have Iceland.

2 ,000 miles to the west, we have
Newfoundland. And under these cliffs, at

edge of the world, we're looking at, on
the very north coast of Ireland, is the

Great Antrim Plateau, a huge basalt
landscape crashing into the North

Atlantic Ocean here.

Giants collide, this massive volcanic
land mass hitting the mighty waters of

Atlantic Ocean.

And it almost slides away, this
honeycomb of rock, this basalt pavement

under the waters of the Atlantic.

This causeway never looks the same
twice.

I have been the only person here. I have
been here with thousands of tourists.

I've been here in the winter when the
rainwater had frozen in the cavities and

the rocks when it was really cold.

And I have been here in glorious
sunshine.

And of course on a day like this.

Even the rain here feels fresher and
cleaner, certainly wetter.

Viewed from above, the Giant's Causeway
is like a finger jutting straight out

from the shoreline into the sea.

It was formed by a volcanic eruption 60
million years ago.

And a fascination around their formation
has brought tourists and scientists

flocking to this area for generations.

It all began in the Palaeogene period
over 20 million years ago.

The molten lava rolls up through those
fissures and spread out to make an

enormous lava lake.

Then over time, this slowed, it slowly
cooled.

And as it cooled, you think of a puddle
at the side of the road, just a puddle

of rainwater.

And as that dries out, you see the mud
in it beginning to crack itself. You

the cracked mud in a puddle? Well, here
this happened on a larger, longer scale.

The lava cooled over decades and
millennia. And as it cooled, it shrank.

And because it cools so slowly and so
regularly, it formed these columns.

These incredible stepping stones, which
they really almost don't look natural.

They look like something man -made by a
giant with a hammer and a chisel.

Its wondrous hexagonal formations here
gave rise to a rich mythological

explanation of its origins.

Everything. about this place is colossal
in scale.

And as we walk into this giant
amphitheater with giant cliff tops and

waves, it makes us, of course, wonder
about the old myth of who it was that

actually built this.

Ireland is full of myths and legends.

And one of our most famous giants is
Finn McCool, the mighty warrior.

of the Celtic tail.

Finn McCool had one enemy in all of the
world, the Scottish giant, Ben Andona,

the Mountain of Thunder.

These two giants, challenging each other
to a fight, couldn't get at each other

because of the might you see.

And so both giants set to, to make a
causeway.

The legend continues about how one day
Finn McCool was taking a rest from his

labours. His wife Una, looking through
the window, spotted the Scottish giant

drawing near. He had finished the
causeway. He was much bigger than her

She knew for sure that he would defeat
Finn McCool in any combat.

And so Una called Finn into the house.
She said, Finn.

I want you to get into that cradle. I
want you to pretend to be a baby with

thumb in your mouth.

Our legend says when Ben and Donna
looked into that cradle and saw the size

Finn McCool's baby, as he thought, with
its truly formed beard and its enormous

size... He thought, I'm not staying
around to fight the father of a baby

this. And carrying back to Scotland, he
was in such a hurry that he left his

boot on the shore, where we can still
see the giant's boot over there.

He tore up the causeway behind him for
fear that Finn McCool would follow.

Everything about this place was just on
a giant scale.

The giant honeycomb stepping stones, the
giant waves crashing.

It was a place of inspiration to modern
writers, people like our own Seamus

Heaney, who won the Nobel Prize for
Literature. He loved the giant causeway

was very much inspired by this landscape
on the north of Antrim.

For some Irish people, the Giant's
Causeway is simply the eighth wonder of

world.

But it's only the first of the wonders
of the Causeway Coast.

Its islands and seas have their own
fascinating stories to tell.

From the Giant's Causeway, three miles
of cliffs and coves lead us to the mouth

of the River Bush, whose tributary
provides

an ideal sweet water supply for whiskey
-making on the Antrim coast.

Just off this coast is Carrica Reed, a
tiny uninhabited island.

There are no people, but from time
immemorial, there have been countless

thousands of fish.

Centuries ago, fishermen built a rope
bridge to reach the rich stocks of

travelling from the Atlantic and
returning home here to the river's bush

band to spawn.

And the bridge, rebuilt and
strengthened, remains to this day, even

salmon population, victims of
overfishing and pollution, has dwindled

nothing.

A larger island, big enough to be
inhabited, sits just north of the

coast, only six miles from the
shoreline.

Here, viewed from above the Mull of
Kintyre, the edge of Scotland seems to

almost reach out and touch its near
neighbour.

We're heading to the island shores, home
to 150 people and tens of

thousands of creatures of the sea.

One person who has made the journey
across this stretch of water all his

life. He's Richard Lafferty.

Richard ferries the island's residents
and curious visitors to and fro.

For him, the seas around Rathlin Island
with their long history are like a

second home.

That's a fantastic place for the
wildlife.

The islanders now survive on the island
by a bit of tourism, fishing.

And also now they've got a kelp farm
where they harvest seaweed and people

that now for food.

And the island over the years has been
very famous for its smuggling.

People over the years have travelled and
always have had to pass it. So the

Vikings have been here, the English have
been here, obviously the Irish, the

Scots. And many a battle has been fought
on the island.

At this small stretch of water, which he
must cross, the force of the Atlantic

Ocean is pressed through a sea passage
only six miles wide.

And what we have is we have the whole
Irish Sea emptying and the Atlantic

coming in when the tides change.

That over the years has caused a lot of
problems for mariners.

We've got wrecks from every era.

And some of the most famous wrecks are
some of our war wrecks.

In one day alone, a German U -boat sunk
three British warships in this Rathland

Sound.

We have two British warships just
sitting here now about half a mile to

north of us.

The most famous sea wreck happened
several hundred years earlier.

Lagerona was dashed on the Causeway's
Rocks in 1588.

The ship was part of the Spanish Armada,
who were fleeing the English fleet.

Over 1 ,300 men lost their lives, making
it the biggest shipwreck disaster

Ireland or Spain has ever seen.

Just nine sailors survived and scrambled
ashore at Dunluce Castle.

helped by the members of the ruling
MacDonald clan.

Legend has it that they raided the
ship's washed -up booty using the

rebuild their castle.

La Llorona lay at the bottom of the
ocean for 400 years, but in 1967, the

remainder of the ship's hoard of gold
was discovered by divers in these

treacherous waters.

Rattle -in -sounds waters may be
perilous for humans, but wildlife is

at home here.

The ocean currents, certain times of
year, the water's thick with plankton,

that plankton is a food for marine
creatures.

The island's wild, it's spectacular.

The marine life on it's intense, bird
life, fish life, corals.

We're lucky enough that we will see the
bastion shark. They're feeding the

plankton generally near the surface.

It can be up to about seven, eight, nine
meters long and two or three meters

wide. So not as big as this boat, but
not far off it. But a really impressive

creature to see in our water.

You never know what you're going to see.
There's some fantastic interactions

with the dolphins, whales and bird life.

Rathlin Island's 70 -metre -high basalt
cliffs are home to Northern Ireland's

biggest colony of breeding seabirds,
including the kittiwake, a

gull named after her bird call.

Because of their remote nesting areas,

their young are one of the few chicks
that are white at birth, as they don't

require camouflage.

like the chicks of more vulnerable
species.

Their young instinctively know to stay
still so they don't fall to certain

on the rocks below their cliffside nest.

Among the thronging masses of birdlife
on Rathlin are the puffins.

who arrive like clockwork in March each
year for the breeding season.

Puffins usually lay just one egg per
season, choosing the same mate.

The puffins' chatter on rattling
dominates the cliffs.

Whilst at sea, they remain perfectly
silent.

Also enjoying the coves of Ratlin at low
tide are the seals.

The island has a population of up to 1
,500 grey and harbour seals.

But they are not the only creatures to
take refuge on Ratlin.

In 1306, Robert the Bruce, King of
Scots, is said to have retreated to a

Ratlin after being defeated by the
English.

Legend has it that observing an
industrious spider here inspired him to

to Scotland and fight for independence.

And today these legends have been
replaced by fantasy through the famous

series filmed around the Causeway Coast.

This whole area is famous for the Game
of Thrones scene. And we've got quite a

few sites that have been made famous by
this series.

For example, behind us we've got
Dragonstone, where Jon Snow pitted the

for the first time here at Fairhead.

And we've got Slaver's Bay in Murloc
Bay.

Why does Game of Thrones come here?
Because they have such diverse geology,

fantastic backdrops to the scenes.

Other local places lend their atmosphere
and history to the filming.

Like the dark hedges of Amoy, a road
flanked by 150 beech

trees, planted to provide a grand
pathway to a local mansion.

Local legend has it that the hedges are
haunted by a grey lady.

As we travel south along Northern
Ireland's causeway coast, we're going to

tempted inland by the sight of a gentle
rise in the land known as Knockdew.

But this is no naturally occurring hill.

It's a Bronze Age fort, which dates to
around 2000 BC.

A series of massive earthworks, three
banks, and dishes running for 300 meters

and protecting the approaches.

Excavations reveal the structures of
round houses inside the fort.

A community must have lived here for
hundreds of years, up on the hills, even

during the ravages of winter.

4 ,000 years ago, the inhabitants would
have braved the fierce Atlantic winds

from this lookout point, protecting
their homestead.

We head inland on the wings of the
endangered Hen Harrier, whose population

in the Antrim Hills has dwindled by 80%.
He flies above the

Antrim Plateau, an exposed and desolate
landscape.

which has its own wild beauty.

The male hen harrier, with its
distinctive white rump,

provides food for the female.

He settles at his stronghold.

on the 800 metre long and 200 metre wide
Slemish Mountain, making his nest on

the ground amongst the heather.

Slemish is Northern Ireland's largest
volcanic plug, or lava neck,

formed when magna hardened right at the
volcano's vent.

the resulting dolerite rock is harder
than the rock that surrounds it, which

why Flemish has not been eroded by
glaciers.

According to legend, it was the first
known Irish home of St. Patrick, who was

enslaved here as a boy working as a
shepherd.

He is said to have found religious faith
on Flemish and the mountain, is now a

place of pilgrimage.

Seen from space, just south of Slemish,
another great landmark appears.

Like a gigantic splat of ink, Loch Nei
sits in the center of the Antrim

Formed 60 million years ago after
volcanic eruptions ceased, and the

crust lowly sagged.

Loch Ness' 115 square miles of fresh
water make it the biggest lake in the

British Isles.

Staying inland, we're heading north to
the Valley of Glenariff, known as the

Queen of the Antrim Glens.

It's just one of the nine valleys which
crisscross over the Anthem Plateau,

leaving a blanket of green flanking the
causeway coast.

Before the coast road was built here in
the 1830s, the glens were isolated from

the rest of the country, and it was
easier to travel here by sea.

So a strategically placed fort was
needed to protect the glen shores.

and the fertile land surrounding it from
Scottish invaders.

John Robin is a local historian and
direct descendant of the glensmen who

ploughed this fertile land over 400
years ago.

During the 16th and 17th centuries,
there was a heavy influx of Scottish

settlers here due to this coast's
proximity to Scotland.

resulting in an affinity between the two
countries that still felt today.

I come from a long line of Glen's men,
and I am proud to call myself a Glen's

man.

And the first mention of my name in the
Glen's was in 1652.

We are a mere 15 miles from the Scottish
coast. We can clearly see the Mullifcan

Tyre and the Scottish mainland from
here.

And it's basically so close that it's no
wonder that we were all part of the

same kingdom for many, many hundreds of
years, the kingdom of Dalriada.

This site of Red Bay Castle is said to
have been used by the 5th century

kingdom, who ruled parts of early Celtic
Ireland from mainland Scotland.

What's left of the castle today is 16th
century.

The castle itself withstood many sieges
during its time. One of the most famous

was in 1565 when Shane O 'Neill, a
warlord from Mid Ulster, at the

behest of Queen Elizabeth I, decided
that he was going to oust the Macdonalds

from the area.

He came down through Glen Arras, he
burned everything, he sacked the castle,

took two of the main Macdonalds
prisoners.

The McDonalds won their castle back and
rebuilt it from the local stone.

Well, you can see that there are two
types of stone here.

One is the red sandstone. You can see
how red it actually is.

And then you've got the basalt.

The basalt will be harder.

There's a good basalt there.

But no matter how hard the stone was,
the castle couldn't withstand...

the bombardment by Cromwellian forces in
the 1650s, which left us with the ruins

that we have today.

In retaliation against the 17th century
Catholic rebellion, Oliver Cromwell led

a brutal conquest of Ireland, destroying
the native landowning classes and

replacing them with colonists from the
mainland.

Today's landscape has experienced layers
of geological history over millions of

years. But it was just 20 ,000 years ago
that it was engulfed during the Ice

Age.

At the end of this period, the corries,
or V -shaped gaps between the hills,

were smothered in ice.

But as the glaciers thawed, they moved
towards the sea.

taking land with them and flattening the
gaps to form a perfect U -shaped valley

with an unspoilt sandy beach at the foot
of the glen.

Glenarriff Beach is a conservation area,
backed by sand dunes, home to the

yellow rattleflower, named after the
sound it makes as its seeds shake in the

wind from the Irish Sea.

Of the nine glens radiating off the
Antrim coast, Glen Arif is both the

and deepest.

And today, it's a haven for wildlife.

Heron, kingfisher, and cormorant will
travel to the forest glen from their

coastal roosts to fish on inland
waterways here.

The buzzard has made a stunning comeback
to the glens too.

Despite severe persecution and pesticide
poisoning, successful conservation at

Glen Arif means he can flourish here on
the rich hunting ground of small mammals

and amphibians.

Also soaring above the glen is the
peregrine falcon.

whose population is still recovering in
Ireland from devastating declines in the

1960s.

The peregrine falcon is the fastest bird
in the world and can strike his prey in

a stoop dive at speeds of over 180 miles
per hour.

Glenara means everything to me.

When you look around, the scenery, the
people, the heritage, my ancestry,

I just feel as if the glens are part of
my DNA.

You'll probably notice the colour of the
water.

Very dark black.

That is because it is running off the
peak of the uplands and it turns it

almost Coca -Cola colour.

And that comes from the water running
off the peak which is in the uplands

above, soaking through the blanket fog.

Well, one of the best... Known animals
that would frequent the river here would

be otters.

We have quite a healthy population and
that is a sign that the water is of very

pure quality.

This is a hazy backwater.

in the summertime sun beating through
the trees the water vapor cool

at its heaven on earth

we've

journeyed from the city of londonderry
right around northern ireland's

and find ourselves at the eastern side
of the Antrim Plateau.

Looking down from space, we see the
strange shape of Island Magee, looking

rather like an elephant's tail drooping
into the Irish Sea.

And at the southern end of this
peninsula is a place where much of the

extraordinary story of the geology of
this landscape was discovered.

It's called The Gobbins.

Its dramatic appearance is only half the
story, for The Gobbins has plenty else

to tell us.

Dr Mike Sims is a geologist based here
in Northern Ireland.

For him, it's this place that holds the
key to the land he lives in.

It's an amazing place to come and
actually look at some of the geology,

the rocks that make up the landscape
along the Antrim coast.

144 million years ago, the whole of
Ireland was submerged in a warm sea in

white limestone was deposited and can be
seen in the cliffs of the Causeway

Coast today.

But at the Gobbins, that chalk was
overridden by huge fissures opening up

Earth's surface.

Go back 60 million years, which is how
old these rocks are, and in fact

Ireland was more or less where Iceland
is now, and it's sitting on what we call

a hot spot.

Layer after layer of lava was erupted
onto this landscape 60 million years

Those volcanic eruptions here during the
Paleocene epoch would look pretty much

like the modern -day volcanic activity
on the islands of Hawaii.

You've got all this great pile of lava
flows, probably four or five lava flows,

with a red layer of ash at the base.

of each one.

These rocks now, they're very old and
cold. There's been no volcanic in

Ireland for many, many millions of
years.

And the reason for that is because we
have moved away from that hotspot. The

Atlantic Ocean has been getting wider
and wider. It grows at about two and a

half centimetres a year.

And so, whereas we were once where the
volcanoes were, now we're... sort of a

thousand miles away from them.

Well, you would think that these bare
sort of rocky cliffs are pretty

inhospitable places for anything to
live. And in fact, when you look at a

these rocky cliffs, what you're seeing
is not the actual colour of the rock.

You're seeing the colour of the lichens
that are growing on them.

And a lichen is a partnership between an
alga and a fungus.

And on coast, you actually see a very
distinct zoning.

Low down on the shore, you'll see most
of the rocks look black.

And a bit higher up, a lot of the rocks
look orange.

And a bit above that, the rocks look a
sort of grey colour. And that's because

of the lichens that grow on them.

The dark, bathout rock found at the
entrance to the Gobbins holds its own

secrets too.

When the magma was deep beneath the
Earth's surface, actually within it, it

actually contains a lot of gas.

And when it comes towards the surface, a
lot of that gas is released as bubbles.

And it's all to do with kind of hot
water percolating down through the lava

after it's solidified.

So all of these little white dots, these
were bubbles.

It had lots and lots of gas dissolved in
it because it's full of all these

little white specks here, which are
actually a white mineral called zeolite

fills bubbles that was in the lava
originally.

So this was fizzy lava. So as it came
out of the sepia, it probably would have

fountained all over the place. Quite
spectacular.

And the shoreline just south of the
Gobbins provides more clues to the

creatures. who dwelled on this island
millions of years ago.

You come to a beach which is covered
with...

gray and white pebbles. And this gives
an idea of what rocks are actually

underneath the basalt. It's a layer of
hard white limestone.

And this was deposited beneath a sea, an
ancient sea 80 million years ago, far

out to sea.

And within this chalk, you sometimes
find fossils like this. It's a thing

a belemnite.

And underneath that layer of hard white
limestone, there is a layer of much

softer Jurassic clay, which is about 200
million years old. And that Jurassic

clay is actually full, of fossils and
i've got some here and you've got these

little curly ones here this is a shell
of a fossil called an ammonite and there

are other little sea shells in there as
well so this is evidence that 200

million years ago this whole area was
covered by sea in which it was all sorts

of creatures were living two fragments
of dinosaur

bone have been found here at the gobbins
in these Jurassic clades, and these are

the only dinosaurs known from anywhere
in Ireland.

So the Govan's is rightly famous for its
amazing cliff path, but it's also

famous because it's the place where the
only dinosaurs known anywhere in Ireland

were found.

The cliff path is indeed something of a
wonder in its own right.

At the end of the 19th century, a civil
engineer was so enthralled by the

wonders of the Gobbins that he built a
chain of walkways for paying tourists.

It was originally built by Barclay Dean
Wise, opened in 1902.

But it's a difficult part of the world.
You're subject to storms and rock falls.

So by the 1950s, it had fallen into
disrepair and was abandoned.

But in the...

Last couple of decades it's been
rejuvenated and rebuilt and now is a

opened tourist attraction once more with
these amazingly engineered paths along

this rather precipitous cliff.

As we near the final stage of our
journey, the footprint of mankind

and more visible.

The next landmark is the Castle of
Carrickfergus, built by the Norman John

Courcy in 1177, after he conquered
eastern Ulster.

It had a strategic military role for
centuries afterwards.

Three -quarters of the castle perimeter
is permanently surrounded by water.

Around 55 million years ago, magma was
forced into the existing mudstone rock

here, making it harder and more
resistant to erosion than the rest of

shoreline.

And this rock is perfect for building a
castle to last the onslaught of wind,

waves, and water.

368 metres above the sea level, the
rugged terrain of Cave Hill sits at the

eastern point of the Antrim Plateau.

Its giant profile is nicknamed
Napoleon's Nose, and from this natural

point, the city of Belfast and its lock
revealed itself.

A settlement here on the ford of the
rivers Farset and Lagen dates back to

Iron Age.

Like Londonderry's Loch Foyle 100 miles
away, Belfast Loch is perfectly

sheltered.

For centuries, this natural inlet has
offered seafarers 12 miles of virtually

tide -free passage to the oceans of the
world.

But its depth of 65 feet and 5 mile
width made it the ideal home for a

shipbuilding industry.

It was here that the most famous ship in
the world was constructed.

RMF Titanic.

Before it set off on its ill -fated
voyage in 1912.

Today's ships still sail from Belfast
out to the open seas and away from

the extraordinary Causeway Coast.

Without doubt, one of the world's most
beautiful landscapes.