All language subtitles for Grand_Tours_Of_Scotlands_Lochs_S01E01_1080p_track3_eng

The beautiful waters
of Loch Etive,

hemmed in by high mountains,

lie at the centre of a landscape
that fuels the imagination.

There is an almost primeval
feeling about this place.

The shores are wild and inhospitable

and steeped in Celtic myth
and legend.

Lochs are Scotland's gift
to the world.

They're a product of an element that
we have in spectacular abundance -

water.

It's been estimated that there are
more than 31 000 lochs in Scotland.

They come in all shapes and sizes,
from long fjord-like sea lochs,

great fresh water lochs
of the Central Highlands,

to the innumerable lochans
that stud the open moors.

In this series, I'm on a loch-hopping
journey across Scotland,

discovering how they've shaped
the character of the people

who live close to their shores.

For this Grand Tour I'm exploring
the origins of a mythic world

as I follow a loch
from sea to mountain.

My destination for this Grand Tour
is Argyll and Loch Etive,

which runs from white dogs
of Connel,

through the lands of Lorn,

before turning north-east towards
the high mountains of Glencoe.

Loch Etive is a classic fjord

and was fashioned by ancient glaciers
that scoured out the landscape

as they made their way
slowly to the sea.

The untamed shores of
upper Loch Etive are truly remote.

There is no public road
into this wilderness,

and no settlements
along its farthest reaches.

The loch meets the sea and the
Firth of Lorn at its narrowest point

where the early Gaels
settled 1,600 years ago.

They called their kingdom Dal Riata

and its history is populated
with heroes and their mighty deeds.

The narrowest part of the loch
is the closest to the sea.

Today it's spanned
by a bridge at Connel.

Connel means 'the white dogs'
in Gaelic,

so called because of the tidal race
that rips through the narrows

at an incredible 12 knots.

The white dogs are known in English
as the Falls of Lora,

and when the tide is running

the dogs become a playground
for the brave.

The tide is in full flood
and to watch the sport,

I've joined kayaker Dave Bleazard

on a powerboat in the middle
of the falls.

Well, Loch Etive runs out 15 miles
up behind you up to Taynuilt

and then all the way up
to the head of the loch.

And the tide drops,

today it's dropping by about
three metres in height,

so all that volume of water,
three metres of all the surface area

of Loch Etive has got to all
come piling through this gap.

But it's amazing the force of water
that we're looking at here.

There's great boils
erupting on the surface

as if there's something alive
down there.

Yeah, the bottom's not flat
so there's pinnacles and hollows

and it forces the water up
and it forces it down.

Yeah, it's just not a straight run
through at all.

Now, if you were in a kayak
over there,

what kind of challenges
are you faced with?

Staying upright
is the first of them!

There's plenty of boils and things
are going to push your boat around,

push you sideways.

But this is strictly for experts,
I'm guessing?

Yeah, the boys that are on here
today are some of Scotland's
top paddlers, absolutely.

Oh, he's gone, he's gone.

He's back up again.

Some of the kayakers are making use
of an unusual two metre wave

that's formed under the bridge.

That's a big wave but it's not
actually moving anywhere, is it?

It's a standing wave.

So that's, like, quite a strange
phenomenon, is it not?

Well, in ocean terms it is.
In river terms it's not.

We get a lot of waves not
on the river that stand still,

and so it is, it's a river feature
on the sea.

So you'll be able to have
lots of opportunity as a kayaker

to just constantly surf this wave.

Yup.

And it's not gonna ever break
and reach the shore.

No, that's right.

It's hardly surprising
that the early traveller,

Dorothy Wordsworth,
never forgot the Falls of Lora.

In 1803, she and her brother,
the poet William Wordsworth,

crossed in an open boat
with their horse and trap.

"The horse fretted and stamped its
feet against the bare boards.

"The tide was rushing violently
in making a strong eddy,

"so that the motion, the noise
and foam terrified him still more,

"and we thought that it would be
impossible to keep him in the boat."

Fortunately, they just managed
to stop the horse

from jumping overboard
and capsizing the boat.

And guess what? They never took
a highland ferry again.

Paddling at slack tide, with
the fury of the falls but a memory,

I make my way to one of the most
ancient castles in Scotland.

The imposing fortress of Dunstaffnage

has guarded the entrance
to Loch Etive for centuries.

In the Middle Ages,
Dunstaffnage became a centre

of clan MacDougall power.

Now, unfortunately,
they backed the wrong side

in the wars of Scottish independence

and were defeated by Robert the
Bruce, who confiscated their lands

and gave them to their arch rivals,
Clan Campbell,

who have reigned supreme here
ever since.

With so much Campbell history
imbued in its ancient walls,

Dunstaffnage is a place of legends,
where the past and the supernatural

seem to be ingrained into
the very fabric of the building.

Lorn Macintyre has known
the castle since he was a boy.

Having spent his formative
years in its shadow,

the place and its Campbell keepers
have left a great impression on him.

Now, Lorn, you've known Dunstaffnage
since you were a boy,
is that not right?

Yes, we grew up beside
Angus Campbell,

the twentieth heredity captain
of Dunstaffnage

as he never failed to remind people.

Right.

My grandmother was his housekeeper
in the mansion house

which burnt down in 1940, and she
was really for the rest of his life

his confidante and looked after him.

He was a very colourful character.

He was a very, very colourful
character.

He was I would call one of the last
of the traditional lairds.

He was steeped in his own heritage
but also very much steeped

in a kind of Celtic mystical
supernatural heritage.

He lived I think
in a world of ghosts

and he lived in a world of rituals.

When you walked up the avenue
with him in the twilight

and the moon was rising,

he insisted on stopping

and opening his sporran
and turning the coins over,

because he had a superstition
about that,

and when you were in
my grandmother's kitchen

when he was taking his coffee,

you daren't look at the new moon
through glass.

Right, why was that?

Because he thought it
would bring misfortune on to you.

He was enormously superstitious.

He believed somehow that these
supernatural apparitions,

and there were apparitions,
were part of his heritage

like the paintings on the walls
and therefore just to be accepted.

The captaincy of Dunstaffnage
is a hereditary title

granted by the
Campbell Duke of Argyll.

In addition to a peppercorn rent,

the captains are
traditionally obliged

to spend each midsummer's night
in the gatehouse,

which has the reputation
for being haunted by a poltergeist.

So he'd come here by himself
on a camp bed

and spend midsummer's night here?

He came here when he had a torch.

He had the West Highland terrier
to alert him

if any ghosts should appear
and disturb him,

and then he put a light out,
he stopped reading

and he was fetched again
in the dawn and taken back home

and my grandmother made sure
that he had not been disturbed

during the night by any
spectral interventions.

And were there any spectres that
he might have seen, do you think?

Well, the principle one
is a lady called the Ell-maid.

I'm not quite sure
how she gets her name

but she seems to have been a
very real presence in this castle

down the centuries,

and one of the attributes, according
to tradition of the Ell-maid,

is that she has a man's tread,
a heavy man's tread.

What about you, Lorn -
would you spend the night here?

I don't think so.

From what I know of the place
and what I have actually heard,

and read, I think I would have
to have people with me

and perhaps a very, very good
guard dog.

It is spooky, it is very spooky.

Out of a strange sense of bravado,

I've decided to spend the night
in the gatehouse.

I'm doing this not to challenge
the claim

of the Campbell keepers
of Dunstaffnage,

but to see if it's possible
to get a good night's sleep

in such an ancient and haunted place.

According to Lorn, the Ell-maid
announces her presence

with the sound of
very heavy footsteps,

which is bad news if you're
unlucky enough to hear them.

So I've got these earplugs,
just in case,

and as an added precaution

in case I see anything that's
particularly ghoulish and disturbing,

I've got this eye mask.

So, time for bed!

Ah. Ahh!

I'm exhausted.

After a rather fitful sleep,
I leave Dunstaffnage

and its supernatural connections

and continue my journey eastwards
up Loch Etive,

heading to Bonawe
and the village of Taynuilt

where I come across a little known
monument with legendary connections.

This standing stone,
curiously called The Nelson Stone,

was the first ever monument
erected to the memory

of Admiral Lord Nelson

after his death
at the Battle of Trafalgar.

So what, you might well ask,

has a highland village got to do with
a one-armed, one-eyed naval hero?

And the answer, of course, is balls.

Cannon balls, to be precise.

Remarkably, some of the cannon balls
fired by the Royal Navy at Trafalgar

could well have been made from iron
smelted here

on the shores of Loch Etive.

At Bonawe are the impressive remains
of an iron foundry

built in the 18th century.

These days it's also a museum.

Now, this is a rare
and rather unexpected example

of early industry in the Highlands.

And this is a lump of iron slag -

the waste product
from the smelting process.

It's rough and quite heavy
and you can find it on the ground

everywhere around here.

Now, the iron ore itself actually
came all the way from Cumbria -

brought here by the iron masters
for the smelting process.

And the reason they chose Loch Etive

was because of this stuff, charcoal,

which came from the trees
round about.

Alasdair Eckersall is a ranger with
the National Trust for Scotland.

He combines charcoal making
with woodland conservation.

This is a kiln, a charcoal kiln?
It is, that's right.

Well, I have to say it doesn't look
quite as high tech as I imagined.

It's basically just a big oil drum,
is it not?

It is indeed, but it's higher tech

than you would have come across
in days gone by,

but there's certainly
more advanced ways

of making charcoal these days,
right enough.

Now, what exactly is charcoal?

So, charcoal is just
the carbon element of wood.

If you take a piece of wood

and you burn it without the presence
of oxygen,

everything else in the wood
will disappear

and you're left with the carbon
skeleton of that piece of wood.

So how do you take the oxygen
out of the equation, then?

By getting a good, hot fire going
but in a controlled fashion.

So using a kiln like this
we can seal out most of the air.

Just let a small amount of air in.

The next phase of operations
is to stack the kiln,

which means that we actually have
to climb inside it to lay the wood,

which Alasdair's volunteers
have prepared.

A task that would have been familiar
to charcoal makers of old.

The charcoal making families
would have just lived in the woods.

Some of the archive photos
you'll see the very basic stone

and little thatched huts, that they
would build themselves in the woods.

And the whole family
would live like that?
The whole family would live there.

The nature of charcoal making then
meant they had to be on site

all the time watching their burn.

I'm then granted the honour
of removing the centre pole

and pouring burning embers
into the space to set the fire.

And how long will this burn for?

This is going to burn
for about 14, 15 hours

With the lid in place
and sealed with mud,

the burn will need to be tended
carefully and the airflow adjusted

using four pipe chimneys to make
sure the wood doesn't turn to ash.

After the smoke finally clears
the following morning,

I join an anxious Alasdair

to lift the lid
on his charcoal making skills.

And this is the moment of truth.

It certainly is.
What's inside?

I thought there might
just be a pile of ash.

But that's really impressive,
isn't it?

That's come away OK.
Yeah, that's not a bad burn.
That is really impressive.

You can see there how
the wood's kept its integrity.

We've still got the shape
of the original piece of wood.

But everything else
has gone out of it

and we're just left with the carbon.

You can even see the grains
in the wood and the rings.

It's really quite beautiful.
It's almost like a work of art.

As mist descends over the forest,
I move on,

heading to a place
that continues to make use

of the area's abundant resources -

oak wood and salmon.

At Inverawe Smoke House,
salmon and trout are prepared daily.

Once filleted, the fish are placed
on racks to be dried and cured

using the age-old process
of cold smoking.

Yes, you beauty.

I help the owner,
Robert Campbell-Preston,

to load up with freshly split
oak logs.

He then introduces me
to the arcane art of smoking.

Smoke goes under the floor here
and then up through the kilns

and out through the roof.

You know, it's very simple.

Passing through the fish on its way.
Absolutely.

So, I'll just pull this out for you.

Now, how you make the smoke

is really with this
little contraption down here.

Is that controlling the air supply?

That controls the air
and when you're coal smoking,

you don't want flame,
you just want smoke.

Every fire is different.

You get to know the quirk
of each fire.

Lift the lid off.

So, this is a 14/7 operation.
Yup.

And the secret to good smoking,
I think,

is to keep stocking the fire
every four hours.

That's perfect.

Now, what you need to do to make
a good heart in your fire,

what they always do is bang it,
bang it, go on, bang it, bang it.

That gets a good heart going.

Puts the wood down.

And heart to the fire
is really important.

Now see how you're getting...

The smoke is increasing.
No, the lid's off.

The smoke's increasing
because we've put fresh wood in.

Obviously the more, the fresher
it is, the more smoke you get

and that's why it's so important

that you stoke the fire
every three to four hours.

You love your smoke.
You love it too!

Right, lid on.
Now, this is important too.

Again, control it 'cause that
controls how the fire works

but where you place this in here
matters,

because remember,
when we are smoking,

we mustn't let the fish get warmer
than thirty degrees.

I'm smoking already, Robert.
OK, push it in, push it in.

Push it in. That's it.

So, you must have shift work here?

Oh, yes. 7-7, yeah.
We've always got somebody here.

And the fire never goes out?
At night we just stoke it down.

Do they ever go out?
Oh, yeah, of course they do.

Well, sometimes.
They do. Sometimes.

That's when the boss starts shouting
and starts to get angry.

Why the...why are the fire...
Who let the fires go out?

You know,
just like the wife at home.

Who let the fire go out?
You know what I mean.

You're very passionate about this.

I've never heard of someone
speak so passionately about smoke

in my life before.

Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it?

Back on the water,
I head further up the loch

in the company of Natalie Hicks,
a research scientist

working with the Scottish
Association of Marine Science.

Natalie has been studying
the extraordinary ecosystem

hidden beneath the deep, dark waters
of Loch Etive.

So, Natalie, we've certainly picked
the weather to be out on Loch Etive

which, from a scientific point
of view, is a really unique loch.

Yes, it is, indeed.

I mean, it's one of 110 sea lochs

that we have
on the west coast of Scotland,

and for scientists,
this is particularly interesting

because effectively
we've got a marine-dominated system

in the lower basin here,

and we've got a more fresh water
dominated system in the upper basin.

Very much like a fjord
you would find in Norway.

So, what does that mean
in terms of the marine life

you might expect to find here?

So, we've got a few unique species
in the loch.

Most of them you do find
in the open oceans.

For example, we've got a zoo
plankton population,

a copepod population.

And so zoo plankton are found...
What's that?

They're small organisms
that feed on phytoplankton.

They form the basis
of the food chain.

There's a huge population
in the loch.
Really?

It's an ideal environment for them.

So they can tolerate
the changes in salinity

and there's not many predators
but there's a lot of food.

So what kind of abundance
are you talking about?

Can you scoop it out of the water?

You can scoop it out of the water
and it looks like a pink soup

'cause there's so many of them
it changes the colour of the water
itself.

I know you've got a net.
We have got a net.

We're gonna do some scooping?
I think we should scoop some out
and see if we can catch them.

Excellent.

The zoo plankton we are after form
an important part of the food chain.

Their bodies have
a very high omega oil content,

and it's what makes the fish
that feed on them,

like herring and mackerel,
so healthy to eat.

Natalie's method of catching them
takes me back to a happy childhood

spent rock pooling with a shrimp net,

although this one
is considerably longer

and has a collection bottle
at its base.

You don't want to lose that, do you?
NO, definitely not.

It's as simple as lowering the net
into the depths

and bringing it up to the surface.

Here it comes. Have we got anything?

Let's have a look. Let's tip it into
a bucket and see what we've got.

Ooh, we've got
a couple of jellyfish.

Look, you can see them.
Is that them?

Yup, so all those little
pinky, browny things...
The pink stuff.

You can see them zipping around.

Some of them are in clumps
and that's what gives the water
the sort of pinkish brownish colour.

Looks like we've got lucky and we've
got two moon jellyfish as well.

Do they sting?
These ones don't sting us.

You're safe to pick these up,
that's not a problem.

There you go.
Wow.

Sure it doesn't sting?
Yup.

It doesn't sting,
it doesn't sting, folks.

You can pick them up,
but only the moon jellyfish.
Yeah, only the moon.

Don't pick any of the red ones up
that you see around the coast.

They definitely sting.

I'm surprised to see so many
of these tiny, little...

They look like little shrimps.
They do and they move very quickly,
don't they?

They do. Do they bite?
They don't bite.

I've never known of a copepod
to bite a human.

Can we see?
Go on.

Ouch! It got me.

To fully appreciate the epic scale
of the Buachaille,

which I have to say is my favourite
mountain in the whole of Scotland,

I'm meeting up with Murray Wilkie

who specialises in taking
extraordinary mountain photographs.

His secret is to capture them

in the magical light of dawn,
sunset or both.

But to do this,
he goes to exceptional lengths.

I'm joining him on a trek
to the summit of a hill

overlooking the Buachaille.

The plan is to camp at altitude.

So, what's the idea behind this
high-level camping, Murray?

Well, it's the views you get,
I think.

The sun sets and the sun rises.

When you get them, you just can't
beat it, it's the best light.

You get great views but when you get
the light, it's just amazing.

It's getting spectacular
with every step.

Or more spectacular with every step.

Look at that. Isn't it just...

Some people wonder why
you come to the mountains

and you don't really know until you
get into these positions, do you?

Such an impressive view, Murray.

It's not bad.
Ben Nevis in front of us.

Look.
Yup.

You can make out its north face
and the moors in front of that.

The essayons over there.
That's right.

And if you go further round,
you can see Ben Alder

and right round to Schiehallion
again.

And in front of us,
we've got this great chasm

of the beginning of Glencoe.

Sunset, which is what we've come for,
isn't too far away.

But there's still time to put up
the tent and have a blether

before the magic hour arrives.

This was the first serious mountain
I ever climbed.

Oh, really?
I was a wee boy.

I was about thirteen or fourteen
and I was scared rigid.

Curved ridge and early December.
Right.

Snow and ice. I was dragged up
there kicking and screaming.

I absolutely loved it,
and we got to the summit

as the sun was going down, so in a
way, watching the sun go down

behind the Buachaille is kind of
reliving that for me.

Yeah.

Have you got any favourite mountains

that you've climbed and managed
to capture the essence of

in your photography and your videos?

Yeah, I think...the one
that stands out, I think -

I did a wild camp on top of Beinn
Alligin, which is up in Torridon.

It was getting dark and I looked
outside back at the summit

and I saw a wee flash.

I thought, somebody's out
taking pictures already.

So I thought, right, I'll get out
and I started taking pictures.

And as I scanned north I took
a picture and you can just see...

You couldn't see with the naked eye
because it was still quite light,

was a wee band of green,
and just as the night progressed,

the lights became visible to the...

What, the northern lights.
The northern lights.

Aurora borealis.

You know, you often see them
on the cameras but you can't see
them with the naked eye.

This was probably only one of
three times that I've seen them
with the naked eye.

The only time I've seen them
on top of the mountain.

They're spectacular, though.
Oh, it was amazing.

But it's strange 'cause
doing what we're doing,

well, the way that you do it, it's
essentially a very solitary pastime.

But you're not a solitary person.

Do you come up here to contemplate?

Do you feel because you're up high

somehow you know
you're on the summit of the gods,

looking down on the rest of humanity?

'Cause we are. You see the cars
driving past down there on the A82.

Tiny wee things
and we're up here.

For me personally, not that I'm
not enjoying your company tonight

but I do like it when I'm by myself
and I don't meet another soul.

There's something...you appreciate
things as well I think

when you do go back home.

We are exceptionally lucky.

The clouds have kept away, allowing
the dying rays of the setting sun

to catch the Buachaille.

The Great Herdsman of Etive
looks very imposing now

as I take a photograph to capture
the essence of my favourite mountain.

Now, this has definitely
been worth waiting for

because I've never seen the
Buachaille in this light before.

He looks truly epic - a real giant,
making this the perfect place for me

to end my grand tour
among the legends of the west.