Original subtitles

Along the west coast of Great Britain,

the world's longest uninterrupted footpath

forges through more than 800 miles of breathtaking scenery.

And you've got this wonderful sandwich.

On the left you keep the sea your path in front of you

and to the right you've got that undulating coastline.

From serene golden beaches

to towering limestone cliffs,

the wind and waves shape, carve and chisel

this majestic landscape.

It's the power of the ocean really

that does most of the work.

Waves around here can get absolutely massive.

We're talking 15-, 20-meter swells.

A coast that reveals geological mysteries,

framed by nature's most beautiful sculptures

and chronicled by centuries of rich human history.

This is the wild coast of Wales.

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On the first morning of November, 1887,

strong gales whipped up around the southern tip of Wales.

The roiling waters of the Atlantic

flipped a cargo ship heavily laden with timber.

Turbulent swells carried the ship to shore.

The ship, the Helvetia, came upon the sands

and got stuck in the sands

and gradually got buried into the sands as well.

Time and tide wait for no man.

And over the many, many decades,

the ship has turned into a wreck.

I remember as a small child coming here

and the Helvetia, the ribs of the hull,

looking like an ancient dinosaur coming from the depths of time.

Today, the remains of the Helvetia

stand withered by the restless waters of the bay.

The wreck continues to be buried further in the sand

with every passing tide.

After all these decades, it's just the prow standing,

making a last call,

before that too is buried beneath the sands forever.

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The Helvetia's cargo,

more than 500 tons of timber,

was collected from the beach

and sold at auction for a bargain price.

In fact it's said there are very few houses

and barns left in the area of the Gower

that don't have some sort of wood or beams

from the wreck of the Helvetia.

More than 250 ships have wrecked along this coast.

The treacherous winds and hostile waters

that sealed the fate of the Helvetia

also sculpted the stunning scenery

along this wild coastline.

Wales is home to the world's longest coastal footpath.

An 800-mile journey that many begin here

on the Gower Peninsula.

The Gower projects westward into the Bristol Channel,

a major inlet that separates South Wales from England.

Rhossili Bay stretches across three miles

of the Gower's south-western tip.

Rimmed with sheer limestone,

topped with brilliant green grass,

Rhossili Bay was designated

as the United Kingdom's first area

of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

(Winds blowing and waves crashing)

The sands of Rhossili Bay

lie between two limestone outcrops.

These form a set of arms that hug the bay.

Nestled between these hard limestone arms

is softer sandstone.

Tides erode the sandstone to form the hollow of the bay.

All the tides around the Gower Peninsula

are influenced of course by the Severn Estuary,

so it has a dramatic effect on the landscape.

The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain.

Its estuary empties into the Bristol Channel,

which opens into the North Atlantic Ocean.

The tides in the Severn Estuary

rise and fall by more than 45 feet.

It is the world's second-highest tidal range,

exceeded only by Canada's Bay of Fundy.

As the tidewaters of the Atlantic

surge through the Bristol Channel,

the sea pummels the Gower Peninsula.

Over time, these tides sculpt coves and bays -

rugged, yet beautiful.

In the 18th century,

the hidden coves and bays of the Gower Peninsula

were ideal nooks for smuggling goods.

Items like alcohol, tobacco and tea

were snuck into Wales tax-free

and sold for bargain prices.

Smuggling was so widespread along the Gower,

even the clergy turned a blind eye.

Smuggled goods were stored

behind the Old Rectory of Rhossili.

An operation that surely

could not have gone unnoticed by the rector.

Now the solitary white house you can see behind me

is the Old Rectory.

It was the house where the priest

or the vicar of the parish of Rhossili would live

and it was situated close by to the church of Rhossili.

The old rectory, you think stands alone.

But if you take yourself back hundreds of years,

the village actually was down there.

There were houses down there.

And they were brought up on the top of the cliff

because of this great sand inundation.

During the 13th century, a change in tidal currents

unleashed wind and rain so powerful

entire villages along the southern coast of Wales

were buried under sand.

In Gower in particular,

we have this raised plateau of limestone shelf

where the sand just packed in

and made these wonderful beaches.

The old village of Rhossili sat at the foothills

of this limestone shelf.

The Old Rectory is the last surviving structure.

The rest of the village of Rhossili is disappeared

underneath the sands.

Again, becoming a victim of the tides

that are always sweeping against the shores here at Rhossili.

The Old Rectory has since been renovated.

Today, it is one of the region's most sought-after lodgings

with a waiting list longer than three years.

Now whenever you come to Wales,

the one thing that you can't help mentioning, of course,

are our woolly friends, the sheep.

Down the Gower there's a lot of what we call "Common Land",

where it's land that goes back to medieval times

which is used communally by all the people around here.

People always say,

well, how does a farmer know which sheep is which?

The ownership of the sheep are indicated

by little tags that the sheep have on their ears.

Now you see the paint on the sheep

but that indicates whether the sheep have had

certain inoculations or injections.

The sheep first came over with those ancient Celtic people

about 500 years BC.

They are naturally a Mediterranean animal

but we find that they live, thrive, and survive

not only in the farmlands but in the mountain regions,

the heathlands, the moorlands and of course the coastal areas.

Now in Wales we've got a human population of about 3.6 million

but we're vastly outnumbered by the sheep.

At any time of year, there are at least 15 million sheep

altogether in Wales.

So we've got about five each for everybody.

On the southern tip of Rhossili Bay,

a mile-long stretch of land snakes out to sea

marking the most westerly tip of the Gower.

The rocky bluff dips down before rearing its head,

150 feet out of the water.

This is Worm's Head.

Now, legend surrounds this Worm's Head.

The name Worm's Head comes from "Wurm's head",

a wurm being a serpent or a dragon

that used to look out onto the horizon of the sea

to guard the shore against any evil spirits

that might want to come in

and corrupt the people that lived here.

Twice a day, with the turn of the tide,

Worm's Head becomes an island

cut off from Rhossili's coastline.

A causeway connects the two landmasses

but it's only exposed for just a few hours at a time.

If you are feeling a bit intrepid,

you can actually walk yourself

out to the furthest-most tip of Worm's Head.

You've only really got a four-hour window

in which to get through the causeway,

onto Worm's Head itself

and then back safely to shore as well.

If you don't, well, sit down and relax

because you'll have at least a 6-hour wait

before you're able to return back to the shore.

(Winds blowing and waves crashing)

Further up the coast, water packs a greater punch.

Waves around here can get absolutely massive.

We're talking 15, 20-meter swells.

Out on the open ocean, they can be reasonably frightening

but as they get into shallow water

the wave height builds up even more

and the front of the wave topples over

and that's when a lot of this erosion happens.

It's the sheer force of those breaking waves

as they hit the cliffs.

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Along the south of Wales,

waves that have powered their way

across the full expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean,

come crashing into the sheer cliffs

of the Pembrokeshire coast.

A coastline that twists and turns west from the Gower

through 186 miles of West Wales.

A thick sheet of limestone guards its western tip,

the Castlemartin Peninsula.

Here, the power of the waves

has carved one of the Welsh coast's

most iconic natural sculptures.

A stone arch juts 65 feet out to sea

and rises more than 60 feet above the water,

clinging to the coast of Castlemartin,

this is the Green Bridge of Wales.

Natural arches like this begin to take shape

when waves hitting both sides of the limestone headland

carve small caves back to back.

Eventually, water breaks through the dividing wall

and pierces through the weaker rock

connecting the two caves.

Over time, this hole widens through erosion.

The result is a natural arch,

one of nature's most beautifully engineered structures.

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Someday the forces that created this arch

will also destroy it.

These sea stacks are the supporting pillars

of what was once an arch.

Each is taller than a 10-storey building.

And represents the final stages of maritime cliff erosion.

Over time, beating waves isolate the rock

from the adjoining cliff.

Millions of years ago,

this scene would have looked similar

to the Green Bridge of Wales.

Eventually, the sea will also undermine these stacks

and the soaring pedestals of stone

will become mere stumps.

As these striking features wash away,

new ones take shape.

Farther up the coast is an abyss

nearly 150 feet deep,

more than 160 feet across.

Large enough to engulf the White House.

This is the Devil's Cauldron.

An imposing crater formed by the collapse of several blowholes.

A blowhole appears when water erodes weaker sections of rock

to create a sea cave.

As waves move in and out,

water pressure builds inside the cave

and wears away the rock.

Eventually, a narrow shaft forms

from the sea cave up to the cliff top

releasing the surging water through a jet spray.

Several of these blowholes formed in this cliff.

As powerful waves continued to erode weaker sections of rock,

the blowholes collapsed creating a much wider shaft.

According to geologists,

the mass of rock that collapsed to produce the Cauldron

is heavier than the combined weight

of the three largest ocean liners ever built.

Over time, the Cauldron cliffs will also break apart

to form a series of stacks and arches so imposing

they will dwarf the magnificent Green Bridge of Wales.

The coast, it's always changing.

But it's the power of the ocean really

that does most of the work.

A walk along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path,

for me, is always special.

You never know what you're going to see.

It's always special because of the geology.

These little guys down here,

they're 24 million years old.

So much, much, much younger than anything else

in the whole of this area.

So it's a bit of a mystery what on earth they're doing here

because they're so out of context.

And what people think is that limestone rocks,

which are the ones we're surrounded by,

are very, very prone to being eaten away by water.

You get lots of cracks, lots of fissures.

And so when these rocks were already quite old,

there were little streams running down

through cracks in the limestone through underwater caverns-

mini caves.

They brought material down with them

and filled little caves within the rock with this stuff,

water went on through, left the stuff behind.

Now since then, the limestone has eroded

and has left these rocks at the surface

so way, way out of time and way, way out of place.

Consequently, rather interesting.

As the sun descends on the Green Bridge of Wales

and the day comes to a close,

the restless waters of the Atlantic

continue to undermine the cliffs.

The morning sun illuminates the wrinkled face

of the Pembrokeshire coast.

Every fault, crease and dimple

is exposed to the wrath of the sea.

Water eats away at these weaker pockets

as though taking a bite out of the coastline.

There are so many layers of the history,

literally in the rocks, in the stories,

in the legends and the myths

and actually going that mile further

and realizing there was something extra special

around the corner somewhere.

Nestled in a hidden cove,

a small medieval church clings to the rocks of a secluded bay.

An air of mystery grips the stone structure.

This is St. Govan's Chapel.

St. Govan's chapel has got lots and lots

of little myths and legends.

Many think the original, simpler stone structure

was built as early as the 6th Century

and restored 7 centuries later.

The entire building is smaller than a one-car garage.

Little is known about the man who built it.

Some people think he might have been

one of King Arthur's knights.

Nobody's quite sure who he was.

Some legends say Govan was an Irish monk

sent to educate the people of this region.

St. Govan's chapel is really interesting.

Many, many centuries ago,

you had this Christianity developing on its own

but through old Celtic people's history as well.

So you find a wonderful tapestry of the history

of the Christian church in particular

literally in the rocks.

Others say Govan was a coward

who took shelter in these rocks to hide from pirates.

Further up the Welsh coast

on the south western tip of the Dale Peninsula,

An isolated bay called "Martin's Haven"

shelters a very different inhabitant.

This time of year's pretty special for the grey seal,

the Atlantic grey seal.

What these seals require at this time of year

are safe, secluded beaches.

It's October, pupping season on the coast of Wales.

The sheer Pembrokeshire cliffs cradle the bay

providing the perfect protected nursery

for these mothers and their young.

Males patrol the water.

Females and their young claim the beach.

It's a really lovely thing to see,

these great little seal pups

and their mothers looking after them.

A mother makes her way up the shore

to feed her newborn.

The pup latches on to suckle.

At birth, most pups weigh about 35 pounds.

They're easy to identify by their soft and fluffy coat.

They're born with a rather smart-looking white coat,

which is, you think slightly odd for a seal

but a lot of the pebbles on the beaches around here

are quite light-colored so the camouflage is quite good.

This baby seal needs to fatten up

before getting in the water.

It will spend the next two weeks latched on to mom.

The mother's milk is extremely rich

as much as 60 percent fat.

So the pup should have no problem putting on the weight.

On average, a young seal will gain about three pounds a day

and can quadruple in size in just three weeks.

For this pup independence is around the corner.

It remains on land living off a reserve of blubber

while waiting for its baby coat to moult.

The pup rubs against a rock to speed up the process.

Once the new waterproof fur grows in,

the young seal will leave the beach

and learn to fend for itself in the ocean.

Once the pup is weaned,

its mother is available to mate again.

And there's no shortage of suitors.

A persistent male patrolling the waters

decides to make his advance.

He charges up the beach

to chase one of the females down into the water.

Competition for mates is stiff.

Territorial fighting is common among males

during breeding season.

Dominant males will mate with as many as 10 females.

Larger males can grow more than 7 feet long,

weighing in at nearly 800 pounds.

Females are smaller, averaging five to six feet,

weighing up to 500 pounds.

It's quite easy to tell a difference between the two.

The females, they tend to be smaller,

lighter, with speckled fur

but their noses are really different.

They have almost a feminine head,

almost a cat-like head, quite a narrow nose.

Whereas the male's darker in appearance, larger animals,

with a much, much thicker nose, rather more aristocratic nose.

The male's long, arched nose

earned the grey seal its Latin name,

"Halichoerus Grypus",

"Hooked-nose sea pig".

Back on shore, a playful mother and her young

lounge on the beach.

Others are busy nursing

or keeping a close eye on their pups.

As autumn comes to an end,

the seals will leave their breeding ground

and make their way home to Skomer Island.

Less than a mile from the Pembrokeshire Coast

off the south-western tip of Wales,

Skomer rises more than 200 feet above the Irish Sea.

From the mainland, Skomer looks like two separate islands

connected by a narrow strip of land.

The power of the sea eats away at this weaker neck of rock

nearly slicing the island in two.

The name Skomer originates from "Skalmey",

a Norse word that means "sliced" or "cut".

Skomer Island was once connected to the mainland.

But as the sea broke through,

Skomer and the smaller Midland Isle became isolated.

The surface area of Skomer is only one square mile.

It takes just 20 minutes to cross the entire island by foot.

Despite its small size,

Skomer has the largest population of Manx shearwaters

in the world.

There's approximately 320,000 pairs of that bird

on this island.

But even if you came here in the middle of the breeding season,

you wouldn't see them

because they're either underground

or out to sea feeding.

The birds that have been feeding only come back to the island

and swap over with their mate in the burrow

under cover of darkness to avoid seagull predation.

Manx shearwaters live in underground burrows.

Rabbits and puffins make similar homes.

As a result, the entire island

is covered in more than one million burrows.

One misstep off the footpath could collapse a home.

Skomer Island is a National Nature Reserve,

a protected marine habitat

and an area of Special Scientific Interest.

Beneath the burrows

and the bright green grasses of the island

lies an important geological story.

Distinct ribbons of rock streak the coastline.

Each one represents a different era

of a turbulent geological past.

Layer by layer these rocks tell the story

of one of the last major volcanic events

that formed much of south Wales.

More than 400 million years ago, ancient plates shifted

causing volcanic eruptions to pour lava and ash

3,000 feet thick

over more than 43 miles of South Wales.

Over time, the lava solidified to stone.

Skomer Island is made entirely of this volcanic rock.

These rocks that we're sitting on right now

are lava flows from that volcanic episode

430 million years ago.

That makes Skomer special.

It's amazing to think as you walk around this island

you're walking over products of a 430-million-year-old volcano.

If you were to look at Skomer from the mainland,

you would see a series of

what appear to be layers.

These layers are, for the most part, lava flows.

Now all of those different types cooled at different rates

to give you final products that are subtly different.

But essentially, from the side you have lava flows

that have been tilted on their side

so they now dip 40° to the south.

What caused that tilting?

Well, that's back to the Caledonian mountains

being created.

When that mountain range was created,

you had a tremendous bout of orogenic activity,

that's mountain building on the earth's surface.

The rocks of Skomer were folded and tilted and buckled

and faulted.

And the Skomer lavas that started out horizontally

were now tilted.

On the south side of the island,

geologists have discovered used artillery...

not from any manmade conflict

but from deep within the earth's scalding core.

These are volcanic bombs fired into the air

from the mouth of an ancient volcano

more than 400 million years ago.

Occasionally a volcano will get very excited and explosive.

It goes through an explosive phase.

And now it jets out material called "Pyroclastic bombs"

that get shot up into the atmosphere

and then they're dumped into the surrounding rocks.

Now if the surrounding rocks are still soft,

as they would be if they're new lava flows,

these spherical bombs of rock

get embedded into a laval matrix

and you can see those on the island,

which is quite an exciting thing to be able to see.

You've got fantastic rock formations just in front of you.

You look out to the Atlantic Ocean.

So you have a big evasion and a feeling of space.

And it's some of the cleanest air on the planet.

Seeing how things have changed over the time,

but how actually rather a lot has stayed the same,

the beauty and the seclusion and the peace and the quiet

has always been a constant for Skomer.

Farther up the coast, the stunning mountains

of the first designated national park in Wales

stretch across more than 800 square miles.

This is Snowdonia.

A place built by fire and sculpted by ice.

You could argue that it's an area

steeped in the history of fire and ice.

That being it's the volcanic processes

that's formed the mountains with tectonic movements

and associated volcanoes folding the earth's surface

and then the glacial period

revealing all the wonders of the geology.

What you'll see around you is various peaks

of different sizes and heights

and some deep valleys-- river valleys

and some wide glacial valleys as well.

The star of this landscape is Snowdon,

the highest mountain in Wales.

Its peak rests in the clouds nearly 4,000 feet high.

The sheer rock, unstable gravel

and tricky traverses of Snowdon

make an ideal training ground for professional climbers.

Edmund Hilary trained at Snowdonia

before heading to Nepal.

And in May of 1953,

he and Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay,

became the first to successfully summit Mount Everest.

Snowdonia's mountains were born in a fiery collision

between tectonic plates.

About 400 million years ago,

the sediments were being laid on the ocean floor

so you would have the ash deposits,

you would have the sand and silt, mud

being laid on top of each other.

And as the tectonic plates were moving,

you would've had one tectonic plate going underneath another,

which created massive folds.

They would have brought the layers

that would've been on the bottom of the sea up to the tops.

That's why you got the best place for fossils

on the tops of the mountains.

Cwm Idwal, a picturesque glacial valley,

bears the evidence of this tectonic shift.

Fossils of marine organisms, once living on the sea floor,

lie embedded in the rocks of Cwm Idwal.

We've got fossils of these little sea creatures,

they're called "Brachiopods".

They would have been shelled creatures with hard valves

and they would have been living at the bottom of the sea

about 40 million years ago.

Nowadays they are being found on the tops of the mountains

and that's due to the tectonic forces that took place.

But these fossils, once at the top,

now lie at the base of Cwm Idwal.

How did some end up at the bottom?

It was a puzzle that perplexed Charles Darwin.

These boulders laden with fossils,

provided some of the earliest evidence

that this entire landscape had been carved by ice.

Scientists like Darwin were only just beginning to theorize

that there had once been a period of immense glaciation.

Cwm Idwal is very important

in terms of its role in the glacial theory

or the theory of glaciation.

One of its famous scholars includes Charles Darwin

who visited the area.

The glacial theory relates to how ice has formed landscapes.

And Cwm Idwal is a classic cwm or cirque.

It's a bowl-shaped amphitheater,

formed when the glacier moves down the mountain.

Darwin proposed that as glaciers move,

they collect rubble from the top of the mountain.

Then move the rocks and dirt downhill

and deposit them at the base.

After helping Darwin prove his theory of glaciation,

these rocks earned their name,

"Darwin's Boulders".

If it wasn't for the glaciers scraping away the surface,

we would have never found these fossils.

You can see the effect of ice carving out the rock

all the way down the valley there.

Today lakes fill deep glacial hollows

and waterfalls spill over rocks

perched high above the valley floor.

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In Snowdonia, there's all kinds of movements of water.

You've got your traditional runoff which forms streams,

you've got glacial lakes,

you've got waterfalls where the hard rock hasn't been eroded

and there's a cascade of water there as well.

Cattle and sheep graze in these mountain valleys,

as they have for thousands of years.

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An ancient drover's crossing constructed with loose stones

was once used to move livestock.

Now it is dwarfed by a modern bridge.

The people have grown,

they've lived in these mountains.

And the mountains themselves are dominant peaks and landscapes

which help with navigation, they provide shelter,

they provide different habitats to graze upon.

But the important part

are the valleys between those mountains.

It's where people come, it's where cultures are shared,

it's where traditions are shared.

There's thousands of years of culture that I feel a part of.

I think I'm rooted in these mountains.

And by standing by the root of the mountains themselves

and looking at the majesty of the mountains,

it just give you a sense of awe.

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Farther up the coastal path at the northern tip of Wales,

a rocky headland,

2 miles long and 1 mile across,

meets the Irish Sea.

This is the Great Orme.

The summit of Great Orme rises nearly 700 feet above the water.

It's defended by sheer cliffs,

which overlook the surrounding countryside.

It is an ideal vantage point to prepare for a coastal battle.

In 1940, early in the Second World War,

the threat of a German invasion put Great Britain on high alert.

The army relocated its Coastal Gunnery School

from east coast Essex to the west coast of Wales.

The view and the wide mouth of the bay

made the Great Orme an ideal training ground

for British gunners.

Boats were towed across the bay

and anchored in the distance for target practice.

By 1942, the gunnery school

had trained more than 750 servicemen.

Today three searchlight stations remain.

Very early on, people had discovered

that it was a good vantage point.

You could see what was happening for miles around,

so I guess that's one of the things

that attracted people to live and to make their lives here.

By the 19th century, many had settled on the Great Orme

to farm the headland.

In 1880, one landowner acquired several Kashmir goats

from northern India and set them free on his land.

Today these goats still run wild

and now number in the hundreds.

I think the goats are symbolic of the Great Orme.

There are feral goats elsewhere in Wales, separate herds

but they're completely different to the goats here.

This is a particular breed, Kashmir.

Halfway down the headland,

steep slopes and narrow ledges

present an inhospitable landscape for most.

(Goats bleating)

But for these feral goats, this is home.

For the most part, the scene on the slopes is quite peaceful.

Many goats rest along rocky ledges.

Others delicately nibble the grass

and pick at the remaining berries.

The dominant males

have the largest curved horns in the herd.

The horns are notched with large ridges.

Each ridge represents one year of growth,

making mature males easy to spot.

These goats are best known for their silky wool coat.

Soft cashmere wool first gained popularity

during the reign of Queen Victoria

and is still in high demand today.

Human history on the Great Orme goes back an awful long way.

Over 500 sites of historical interest

have been recorded just on this small headland.

So it's really rich in human history.

There are so many reasons why the Great Orme is special.

It's hard to quantify, really.

You've got steep drops below you straight down to the sea,

you've got the sound of the seabirds,

that feeling of isolation.

It's--

Yeah, it's a magical place.

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From wide sandy beaches

to towering limestone cliffs,

a journey up the world's longest coastal footpath

reveals spectacular landscapes

carved by the power of water.

Rich marine life thriving amongst the cliffs.

And a Welsh culture rooted in life overlooking the ocean.

The coast of Wales draws this majesty with it.

It's this place where you just repair and refresh and enjoy.

You'll see plenty of sheep, you'll see these green hills.

You'll see really mysterious peaks in the early morning mist.

And I think if anybody was to come to Wales

and spend a majestic 3 months walking around Wales,

they'll leave feeling a little bit more Welsh

than when they arrived.

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