Amazing Quest: Stories from Scotland | Somewhere on Earth: Scotland | Free Documentary

[Music] [Applause] [Music] scotland its breathtaking landscapes are like a vision from the ends of the earth at the outer limits of europe buffeted by storms this land of islands mountains and lakes stirs the imagination the hebrides and archipelago west of the british isles were hewn out by the harsh forces of the ocean the heart of these gaelic lands beats with the pulse of an age-old culture the whims of geology have isolated the inhabitants and forged their insular character the hebrides these scattered bits of emerged land have always been the protected domain of seabirds the highlands are a paradise for lovers of majestic unspoiled nature these are the legendary mountains of scotland a world unto itself suspended in time [Music] the island of tyree is unlike any of the other hebrides islands they say it's the sunniest spot in scotland certainly the windiest on tyree the sheep greatly outnumber the people proud of its gaelic tradition the island of tyree owes its reputation to the pluck of the fishermen and its plentiful lobsters [Music] on tyree nobody knows aleister mclean and yet he was born here and has never left like almost all the children on the island alastair inherited a nickname when he was very young billy billy the box his true identity [Music] i of course everybody's got their own version of that story but obviously my proper name is alistair of course billy i've not actually issued how it came about it was something to do with my father he got the ball rolling as far as me being called billy um and of course billy the box comes with the accordion as we know whatnot and it's called the box uh and when i was in my young teenage teenage years i was very very doing quite a bit of music in the house and neighbors houses and whatnot you know what they're calling those but in the box that stood you know that that stuck with glue every summer seven thousand lambs are rounded up for tyree's sheep fare it marks the end of their carefree existence the rest of the year they run free everyone farms and raises sheep here it's the islanders main source of revenue along with fishing and tourism in the summer set today billy has come to help out colin his young neighbor here even more than in other parts cooperation and teamwork form the bedrock of the community that's the way it should be and the way it really works on the island we we try and look after one another and again i know the likes of calling i could phone calling up at four o'clock in the morning and he would come and give me assistance with no questions asked uh and that's the way it should be and it makes life an awful lot easier when we're working along with one another bye-bye goodbye remember in particular getting the the october holidays from school which was known locally as the potato holidays that was the time when the potatoes went home so you got your fortnight's holiday and you'd you'd dig your own potatoes and put them home and you'd say well thank goodness that's over and done with on the following day you went marched over the road to give your neighbor a hand so yes it was quite you know it was standing we never thought anything of it so we all hit one another [Music] [Applause] [Music] 1963 i believe which is quite old yeah in the hebrides everything seems to flow naturally and timelessly even billy the box's old tractor knows the way to the sea billy who's 52 owns two tractors a dozen cows 20 sheep and a few patches of land to grow what he needs to feed himself and his animals the bare necessities at low tide he goes down to the beach to gather what the sea has to offer [Music] what nature gives you you is making use of it i mean it's it comes in here for a reason so why not make the use of it the old folk my father and my ancestors long before that they all used to come down and gather the seaweed more than fertilizer wasn't quite so available then and it's it's pricey it's cost a lot to bring the fertilizer in and to spread it and all the rest of it i try to get as much as possible it's not always here major it comes and goes um depending on the wind and the tide it brings it in and this is the best stuff i've seen for a long long time you know it's beautiful stuff absolutely beautiful stuff seems to be causal um blocking a lane westbound between the city and this is where very small here in bolton billy is a farmer a musician and a sheep raiser but he wears even one more hat his days all start off very early for he has another mission to carry out on the island [Music] [Music] to be able to live on tyree billy like many men and women here has more than one job for more than 20 years he's been one of the island's three postmen [Music] [Applause] quite often it's barrels they get and junk mail likes to say but whatever it keeps me in work anyway [Music] [Applause] even if there are only 600 inhabitants on tyree his round can't wait billy the postman is a man in a hurry but he always exchanges a friendly word with those he meets on the way right well yes they certainly know me up in the job over 26 years so they've got to know me and even the a lot of new faces come to the island and you know they get to know the postman is pretty quick they cannot hang again you up there you're at the door every day kind of thing so yeah oh yes it's all part of the job [Music] in the hebrides the range of temperatures and the force of the wind are in a class of their own [Music] out in his shirt sleeves as always billy faces the morning chill without a shiver disproving the old scottish saying there's no such thing as bad weather just the wrong gear [Music] as a tidy resident and born and bred here this is only a small breeze this is actually quite a pleasant day believe it or not you're very i would reckon honestly speaking you're as close to nature as you can get living out in a little island at this you've got to be you're at the you've got to face the elements every day you get some good days some nice days but you can get some very very bad days as well with again you're at the mercy of the elements what what you can do when you can do it if you can do it [Music] the inhabitants of tyree are proud of their island's reputation as the windiest spot in scotland [Music] but sometimes the reality surpasses this banal tourist slogan in the western islands the rain and wind have two fearsome allies the swell and the waves [Music] in scotland the winter storms swing from rage to fury [Music] today billy has donned his rain gear he's going to lend a hand to the skipper of the atlantis one of tyree's seven small fishing boats every sunday the fishermen haul in the week's catch tons of shellfish carefully kept alive in creels [Music] crabs lobster prawn velvet crabs the waters off tyree are known to be very rich in nutrients what's more there's no overfishing they know how to protect their treasure here the holding pools are sheltered from the swell just a few meters from the rocky shore ross the skipper has no room for error but the job has to be done no matter what the conditions of the sea because the island is so isolated the fishermen can ship their catch out only once a week and sunday is the one day a truck comes on to the island to load up the produce when you live in a small community you've got to be readily available to give somebody a hand or receive help and this island was very very fortunate and that could work when i close but close-knit community um i can be down in the hardwood within 10 minutes to give ross a hand or column or angus or needle whatever so we've got to work together you can't get help from anyone else but from your community [Music] [Music] for the fishermen it's a race against time [Music] once they dock they have just a few hours to sort and weigh the impressive quantities of crabs prawns and lobster before nightfall [Music] that's the big one isn't it yeah all right that's a good size he's probably 10 year old that one 10 year old baby board the truck has just pulled onto the wharf in the morning it will arrive in oban on the scottish mainland from there it will embark on a long trip to southern europe caught in the waters off tyree is sold in spain the world's fifth largest consumer of seafood but before arriving in sunny spain the precious cargo has to be hand packaged under the watchful eye of sam the scots exporter tyree is one of the best islands on the west coast if not in scotland for quality of shelters you know the quality of velvets the quality of lobsters quality of brown crabs we uh we put them in tanks of water with their an air system blowing we have an engine that runs an air pump that puts air into the tanks which oxygenates the water and uh hopefully keeps them alive you know hopefully mostly most of the time you know we need more money okay europeans never mind breaks it we're still friends more money [Music] i'm born and bred here and my father was from the island my mother's cheese on the island so i suppose i'm as through tidy bridge as you can get [Music] [Applause] [Music] tyree is my home and always will be my home and when you look around it's not a bad little place really it never crossed my mind to ever ever leave ireland um i was quite happy to stay on here and when my late father retired i carried on with the crafting so that was me tied here but i have no regrets whatsoever this is this is where i wanted to be and i hope i'll be here for a few years yet in the hebrides only about 10 of the islands are inhabited like tyree billy the boxes island the entire archipelago is made up of over 500 islands and eyelids most of them are completely protected some were abandoned at the beginning of the 20th century cut off from the rest of the world these patches of gaelic land have become a paradise for migratory birds laura robertson is on her way to the island of barra in the outer hebrides [Music] the small local airport is one of a kind the pilots who do the run between mainland scotland and the hebrides have to check the tide charts before they land here [Music] the landing strip emerges two times a day at low tide [Music] laura is an ornithologist she's just stopping over on barra on her way to her final destination the island of mengele where she'll plunge into an experience quite out of the ordinary living on her own on a deserted island yeah it's just a fantastic opportunity to get away to somewhere really remote and challenging and to live on and there's no shop around the corner to get your groceries from and yeah you know when the weather's bad you just kind of have to batten down the hatches and do your best to get the work done yeah i think to spend time alone on remote islands like that you have to have an awareness of yourself um you don't you need to be able to sort of know when you're feeling a bit down or whatever and not let things get to you too much laura's crossing to the island is scheduled for tomorrow morning she has been preparing to leave civilization for several weeks but tonight laura is already somewhere else off on her island yeah i'm just interested about the place that i'm going to be living on for the next three months to find out more um you know there are lots of stories about mingling that people or barrack can tell you and it sort of whets the appetite to learn more before i go and live there myself years working in an accountant's office then one day she decided to give it all up and strike out in a new direction now her work consists of studying the behavior of seabirds in the heart of the scottish wilds [Music] but at dawn the crossing to mingolei is looking doubtful hi there hi hello hi are you donald i'm donald yes yeah hi there i'm laura and i'm looking to get a boat across to mingle and i've been told you're the person to see yeah that's me that does the boat trips to mingling with the weather's not very good for going today okay uh when do you think it well i'm hoping to go tomorrow okay how long does it take to get across there i wouldn't know what about an hour depends on the weather okay um when might when do you think the weather's going to be the forecast looks better for tomorrow so hopefully tomorrow macleod was skipper of a boat that fished the waters between scotland and the pharaoh islands for more than 30 years he's the only sailor around who goes to mingley from time to severe air force time soon no there's no no harbor no and it's not very sheltered it's always a bit of swell there so it's going to be a very good day to land to take to the sea in scotland you have to seize the calm spells the rare moments when the ocean takes a breather [Music] this time laura is really on her way she won't be back to the port of barra before the end of the summer she can say goodbye to the modern world and its conveniences there's no turning back now [Music] how to prepare for mingling i'm not sure i'm i'm not sure that's entirely possible but um yeah i've been on different islands before none as remote or ambitious as minglay you know it's not just about the work that you're doing it's about living here and being here and making the most of your time out here and the experience and yeah [Music] passing beneath the cliffs laura discovers her new turf there's even a welcoming committee [Music] the seals are right at home on mingle usually there's nothing to disturb them so they're intrigued by this new arrival over there's the um house that i'm going to be spending the next three months in um living and working out of um it's the old school house and that's been done up by the western isles ranger who works for the national trust of scotland so i'm quite excited to see you know my new home for the summer okay donald won't come back with his boat for the next three months unless laura needs emergency supplies [Music] from now on this is her island minguele was not always devoid of human life for ages men and women lived here scraping out a meagre existence from the harsh environment in 1912 the last inhabitants abandoned the islands to the birds 180 people were still living on the island at the end of the 19th century they survived thanks to a bit of livestock some fishing and when times got hard bird hunting back then there was even a school on mingle with 48 children enrolled [Music] so the sort of main part of the village is here in the bay um you can see where the sun starts and then the village starts and there's still quite a lot of remains of all the different houses here um you know some in better condition than others and further along um you above the village you have the old church that was built relatively recently in the island's history scurvy fever and infant mortality finally outweighed the courage of the mingle islanders locations like this islands like this are very much a part of the history of the people that have lived um on the hebrides in the past and are living there now and is very much still part of their lives i think the only thing that laura shares with that distant past is the island's single source of fresh water for centuries it allowed people to live here far from the rest of the world [Music] laura has settled in quickly and organized her time for weeks she'll be hiking the island's hills and cliffs following the path of the wind and living in harmony with the colonies of birds [Music] [Music] keeping my head [Music] by leading a free existence without constraints this ornithologist is living out a dream that many people have to live on a deserted island like a modern day robinson crusoe [Applause] [Music] a definite distance from you know my normal life as such on the mainland and but at the same time it never feels too far away um three months is no time at all really um before you know it the seabirds will be leaving the cliffs um monitoring will be drawing to a close and it will be time for me to go back to the mainland again and leave mingalay behind me and yeah it will come quicker than i can imagine laura hikes several kilometers every day to get to the bird rookeries of mingle she has learned how to coexist with her only neighbors this is their beach more than mine i'm only here temporarily over the summer they sort of spend their entire winter and summer in these waters and on the shores so yeah it's i'm just a visitor really you'll be walking along the coastline on lower sort of rocky areas thinking you're all alone and then this little head pops up and oh who you and as yeah just really inquisitive wants to sort of see what you're up to and follows you about the coast a little bit closest neighbours are the seals which is fantastic you have to be in good shape to do ornithology mingle is an island of stone and peat and it's not always easy to get around from their height of 220 meters the cliffs look down onto the vast atlantic ocean the birds have made this vertical cliff face their domain a refuge in the sky for nesting between migrations laura can't afford to be afraid of heights she spends hours perched up on these vertiginous cliffs among the highest in scotland it's probably one of the most impressive spots that i monitor at in terms of europe quite high so for a lot of the birds you're looking straight down on top of them so the sort of first visit here was yeah kind of took my breath away a little bit and they yeah it's got a good mixture of sea birds here as well so it's not just a couple of species we've got kitty waits razor girls guillemots formers and also some shag slowed down that with the scope we can actually monitor as well laura works for the national trust for scotland an association that manages scotland's natural and cultural riches right now she's taking a detailed census of the bird populations this exhaustive inventory will allow them to better conserve and protect the different species of birds the northern fulmer a tireless ocean traveler it spends most of its time on the high seas far from human eyes [Music] the great its fierce beak is capable of killing its fellow creatures in order to eat or defend its nest [Music] on minglae laura can enjoy the beauty of this wild world from a front row seat who is this strange person every day coming to this cliff what is this strange creature staring at me but not doing anything um yeah who knows what they're thinking [Music] in remote locations like this there's no mobile phone signal so you can't call for help um so one of the first things i was equipped with um is a location kind of tracker basically so i press that first thing in the morning when i'm heading out and when i return um i press it again and you know if i tripped and broke my ankle and when i was in the middle of the island and i can press that and it goes straight to the coast guard um so they would come out um to help me i think the best safety feature is don't take risks [Music] on a good day it is beautiful and yeah it's lovely to spend time in places like this really special places with wildlife as special as this it's fantastic completely different personality in different weathers though so yeah when it's a raging gale it's not quite so friendly not quite so peaceful but yeah it's a beautiful stunning place i'm lucky to be here working here [Music] it's the end of the summer after three months of isolation laura has finished her work on mingle now she's eager to be off to another island for her next mission [Music] further east far from the influence of the ocean we discover an entirely different facet of scotland these are the can gorms in the center of the highlands 121 49 79 115 40 72 126 68. emma o'shea is a mountaineer plucky and tireless [Music] today she and her faithful friend moth are taking part in a famous mountain run through the cairngorms national park [Music] [Music] i never knew what i wanted to do and sometimes i still don't know what i want to do but the one thing that i do know is that i wanted to work outside i enjoy my way of life some people would not like it at all but for me it is the right way of life and i could not imagine being inside all day long looking outside of the window at what is happening outside and so for me i'm very happy and i don't i like when the weather is very wet or very windy and it is still fun to go outside in the mountains and in the forest and when the weather is good that is a bonus [Music] with a height difference of 1 600 meters this competition is a grueling two-hour run in the cold and damp but what makes emma run [Music] emma who was born in the north of england and moved to scotland when she was 16 spends her time clamoring up these rocky slopes she studied geology but now works as a mountain guide welcome to the world of emma in scotland the further north you go away from the center the sparser the population the highlands seem to exist on the outer limits of the known world it's a series of lakes inhabited by legendary monsters bald mountains and age-old forests this is where emma stokes her imagination and her dreams of mountains come on my first trip was nearly 20 years ago um abroad and that was to the alps to charmany and um i did a tour of monk wonk and after that i have gone to the himalayas to nepal and india and to the andes as well and i love to see the mountains but not just the mountains it's very much the mountain people the people who live there when i go to visit and i always say i go to see the mountains but i remember the people the people i've talked to along the way who live the lives that i like to live it's not too bad here emma is leading a small group of middle schoolers today's expedition will take them into the foothills of the highlands on the edge of the cairngorms national park [Applause] the program of the day field work in the open air because i don't want to end up that is a cluster who's waiting for a cluster of trees so take a massic and a spade and five trees with each group to start with there you go okay emma is a volunteer in an association whose goal is to make the young people aware of the need to reforest scotland's mountains so today we're planting hazel trees back onto a hill where there hasn't been any trees for hundreds of years and it was men who cut down the trees for homes for building and for animals and now we've got an opportunity to put them back and it means a lot to me because the trees are very important they're very good for the wildlife and they're very good for people and so it's really it makes me very happy to be able to have the opportunity to come out and then put some trees back onto the hillside the reforestation project is part of the curriculum in the highlands middle schools the students learn that thousands of years ago these bald mountains were covered in forests well for me it's good for um volunteering and like for my future and it's good to have you on your cv it's good experience and it's maybe leading me on to something in my future a career yeah i'll come and see the progress in maybe 20 years or so and see how much they've grown and if it's successful or not yeah that looks good it's good how many trees have you done about 10 10 so 20 to hot chocolate when you look around there are already some trees that are maybe up to almost one meter from the ground and they weren't here 10 15 years ago so very much by the time that everyone here is very old there will be a small forest that they can come back to see that is what we hope very much [Music] in winter the mountains can change their aspect in just a few minutes [Music] at this latitude a patch of bad weather can send the temperatures plunging or quickly turn into a storm [Music] hello the mountaineers know where to take shelter in the buffies rudimentary huts built all over the highlands a roof four corrugated iron walls and a wood burning stove to heat water for tea buffies are part and parcel of scottish culture robert scott a pioneer in mountaineering in scotland is a legend in this region in the 1950s he was one of the first to blaze trails in the highlands lord nowadays at my age i'm now 89 and a touch of arthritis so i can't manage to climb the mountains but they still love to be amongst them and see the mountains that's the main thing and and right to write about the good old days when i used to go climbing so and hopefully when i've written this is my fourth book so i might manage to write another one or two before uh before i reach 100 before before it's my century [Music] emma could have taught geology her first profession or worked in a laboratory but ever since the first time her father took her to the highlands when she was eight she has had her head filled with dreams of adventure mountains and wide open spaces [Music] for 20 years now she's been exploring the heart of the highlands off the beaten path emma has in fact custom tailored a profession for herself guiding hikers and climbers who like herself are in love with scotland's natural treasures [Music] it is like coming back in time there is nobody here and there are just the ruins of the castle surrounded by old trees it's mysterious and magical and it's a very special place to be [Applause] the castle's got a brilliant story it dates from the 1500s but there was a story there was fighting between two families the forbes and the gordons and the gordons had the castle and one day um the sons there were seven sons they'd been sent out to cut pete and the peat was used for heat in the 1500s but the enemy the forbes came along and they slaughtered every single one of the sons and they cut their heads off and then they put their heads on stakes and left them in the field it's really really gruesome but it has an even sadder ending because when the word came back to the father at the castle um he is said to have fallen down the stairs in the building and died here where we stood [Music] [Music] this is one of my favorite mountains it's one of the monroes it's a mountain over 3000 feet in height and this height is 3554 feet but the view from the top is absolutely stunning we can see the whole of scotland from here the monroe mountains are one of scotland's wildest territories nine peaks among which is ben nevis the highest mountain in the british isles emma is starting the ascent of shia halyan a legendary summit everyone in scotland knows its name mount shiajin went down in history 300 years ago for a surprising reason it's a really interesting story it goes back to 1774 and they decided to use this mountain to see if they could measure the weight of the earth and the mountain was chosen because it's completely conical in shape and it was quite a uniform mountain and they decided that if they came up onto this mountain and carried out lots of experiments using a plumb line and newton's law of gravity they would be able to work out how much the earth weighs and they were successful after months of training emma has attained her holy grail she has been accepted into scottish mountain rescue a select team of 800 volunteers who help people in trouble it's easy to get lost in the monroes mountain rescue is something i've always wanted to do going on to the mountains um in the night or in the snow and the blizzard and being able to bring somebody back is very special it's a very special thing to do in our team there are 50 people and maybe less than 5 maybe less than two percent in every team a female just a small number and we come together and the thing that we all share is mountain rescue and that we want to help people in the mountains it is cliche i always felt i would like to put something back and i have worked outside and i have built mountain footpaths and i have planted many trees but to be able to save other people it means a lot to me a very very big lot to me it's for these moments that emma decided to become a mountain guide [Music] nothing and no one can take these deeply satisfying moments away from her for emma there's no need to travel to the ends of the earth to find adventure this young woman in love with her mountains has chosen to make her life a long voyage on the paths of her own freedom it's just wonderful just to sit and let the world stop we spend a lot of time rushing around and it is lovely to be here outside and surrounded by the mountains and the water and to stop and just to spend the time with the fire and with friends sometimes or also on my own as well or with the dog too for other people they would think this is not five star at all and but for me it is and it is very special to feel that way and this is much better than a five-star hotel this is this is very real for me [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), somewhere on earth, amazing stories, amazing stories from scotland, amazing quest, scotland

Id: z9DC7b5ONZU

Length: 52min 0sec (3120 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 04 2023