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Out of Doors: 30/04/2016

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30/04/2016

BBC Radio Scotland - Out of Doors, 30/04/2016

Mark Stephen and Euan McIlwraith present a special programme from the Great Glen.

Mark Stephen and Euan McIlwraith present a special programme from the Great Glen, the geological fault that ties together Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy.

This week on Out of Doors we bring you a special programme from the Great Glen. The team is making its way along the geological fault that ties together Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. This is the first of two programmes that will ultimately take listeners on a trip from Inverness to Fort William.

Mark and Euan start the journey, heading out along the canal side on electric bicycles, meeting boat owners along the way and discovering the joys of turbo-power.

Mark learns about the huge natural forces that have formed the glen from geologist Peter Harrison and Alison Wright of the Highland Geological Society .

Producer Mike Grundon goes wild camping in his kayak, paddling along the shore of Loch Ness, watching the birds, and cooking on a fire under the stars.

Mark and Euan find themselves in survival suits, bobbing about in Loch Ness waiting to be picked up by the only freshwater, inshore lifeboat in Scotland. They meet the crew of the RNLI rib and they're on scene when a genuine call for help comes through.

Mark visits the old aluminium smelter at Foyers which once employed 400 people, turned out metal for aircraft during the Second World War, and was subsequently bombed by the Luftwaffe.

You can't visit the Great Glen without dropping in on Urquhart Castle. 

Loch Ness is synonymous with the monster. Nessie has captured the imagination of visitors for centuries and Euan meets monster specialist Adrian Shine and boat operator Alastair Matheson to untangle fact from fiction.

This first programme from the Great Glen ends at Fort Augustus which once had great strategic importance. Local historian Felix Paterson tells Mark and Euan about its rich and colourful past.

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