Out of Doors

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Out of Doors: Jim Crumley and the River Ythan

Jim Crumley and the River Ythan

BBC Radio Scotland - Out of Doors, Jim Crumley and the River Ythan

Mark Stephen and Euan McIlwraith with Jim Crumley and the River Ythan.

Join Mark Stephen and Euan McIlwraith as they speak to nature writer Jim Crumley and explore the River Ythan in Aberdeenshire.

In the first half hour Mark and Euan are in conversation with nature writer Jim Crumley.

Jim started his working life as a journalist and then moved on to nature writing and has published over a dozen books.  His interests include the reintroduction of species like wolf, sea eagle and beaver to mountain and island wildlife.  

Mark and Euan meet him in Glen Finglas, in the heart of the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, a place that inspired his most recent book, A Nature of Spring.


After 7 o’clock we follow the River Ythan in Aberdeenshire from source to sea.

We start in the hamlet of Ythanwells 	with our guide Bob Davis, a founding member of the Ythan Biodiversity Volunteers.  The river starts life as no more than a trickle but as we continue our journey it widens out.

Along the way we visit Towie Barclay Castle which was restored from a ruin in the 1960s by Marc Ellington and his wife and hear about the history of song in the area from musician Hanna Tuulikki.

We follow the Ythan as it passes Fyvie Castle and then the ruin of Gight Castle and the Gight Woods Wildlife Reserve. 
		 
Mark and Euan pop into Haddo Country Park to find out about the relationship between park, estate and house and then head for Ellon, the biggest town on the Ythan.	

From here it’s into canoes under the guidance of Lyle Smith from Granite Adventures to try and make it down the Ythan to where it becomes an estuary.   But battling against the wind can they make it to Newburgh?

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