Episode 5
To help open up the islands to tourists, Monty is writing a guide book to a series of trails. He investigates the Bonnie Prince Charlie route on horseback and also visits Vatersay.
Marine biologist and professional diver Monty Halls is back in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, living the good life and working as a volunteer wildlife ranger in the Outer Hebrides.
As November starts, Monty realises that he has loads of work to do and little time left. To help open up the islands to tourists, he is writing a guide book to a series of trails. He investigates the Bonnie Prince Charlie route on horseback, following the prince's escape route from the islands in 1746 after his abortive attempt to seize the English throne. He also heads south to Vatersay, to help with an anti-erosion project, then up to Benbecula to join a hedgehog patrol, trapping this introduced and unwanted species for relocation to the mainland.
Before Monty can start marking out his trails, his trusty Land Rover grinds to a halt and has to be towed away for repairs. So he sets out in a tiny hire car to mark the trail on Berneray and then heads for the shelter of a local pub, where students from the local college are practising traditional music around the inviting peat fire. He interrupts his trail-blazing to visit the final lamb sales of the year. Meeting Heather Morrison, the crofter he got his turkeys and pigs from, he finds that lamb prices are up from five to nearly 50 pounds in just one year.
After weathering a power cut, Monty guns up his quad bike to research the final trail, meeting archaeologist Kirsty Macdonald on the site of an Iron Age 'wheelhouse'. Before returning to mark out the trail, Monty organises a beach clean-up, collecting 50 bags stuffed with rubbish. Then he returns to mark out the Udal trail, but a particularly lusty sledge-hammer blow lands on his foot.
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