Ramblings

Clare joins Fiona and Sam Stewart to explore Rathlin Island, off the coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland. Fiona and Sam are both keen travellers and first met in Nepal where Sam was running the inaugural Everest marathon and Fiona was working as part of the medical team.
Shortly afterwards, Fiona moved from England to Northern Ireland to be with Sam and the couple have lived there ever since. Both are cancer survivors who credit walking as a significant part of their recovery. They love exploring the local area and have chosen to take Clare to one of their absolute favourite places: Rathlin Island.
With a population of around 150, Rathlin is Northern Ireland's only inhabited offshore island. Measuring just four miles from east to west and 2.5 miles from north to south, it's reached via ferry from Ballycastle.
Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor

In the first of three consecutive walks in Northern Ireland, Clare explores a stretch of the Columban Way in County Down, from Newcastle to Dundrum. Leading the way are Brigid Watson, Deborah Girvan and Charlie Reid, who are all members of the Friends of Columbanus Bangor. This group has helped develop the Northern Irish stretch of this extraordinary European Camino which starts in County Carlow and ends in Bobbio in northern Italy.
Otherwise known as the Via Columbani, this route celebrates the life of the Irish Saint Columbanus. He was a 6th-century monk and pilgrim who left Ireland with 12 companions, spreading and reforming Christianity across the continent of Europe. Brigid, who changed tack in later life to set up her own tour-guide business Sustainable Journeys Ireland, also shares stories of the stranding of the SS Great Britain in Dundrum Bay in 1846; and of Sir Hans Sloane, born in County Down in 1660, whose collections formed the basis of the British Museum.
They met outside the Percy French restaurant, walked north along the beach before crossing into the Murlough National Nature Reserve, along the Murlough Estuary, before heading up to Dundrum Castle with its panoramic views of the Mourne Mountains.
Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor

Clare meets Karen Skeel who runs a bed and breakfast halfway along the Coast to Coast footpath. She and her partner, Neil, walked the entire route in 2010 and fell in love with the scenery near Keld, somewhere they struggled to find accommodation. On returning home, they made the life-changing decision to give up their jobs, sell their house and buy a 300 year old rundown farmhouse which they turned into the B&B and their home.
Karen says it was a bit like Grand Designs: it cost far more and took far longer than they imagined. However they’re now happily hosting fellow walkers undertaking the 192 mile route, which runs from St. Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire. Originally mapped out in Alfred Wainwright’s 1973 guidebook, the Coast to Coast walk was officially upgraded to a UK National Trail in March 2026.
Karen showed Clare around the B&B before leading her on a circular route out of Keld, along the banks of the River Swale. Karen has written her story in "Coast to Coast and Halfway Between".
Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor

Clare meets Jamie Stott, an Emergency Medical Technician, for a circular walk to Castle Crag in the Lake District. Joining them are members of his North West Ambulance Service walking group which he founded in 2025. Jamie wanted to give colleagues, friends and family a chance to explore the fells together. The routes vary from gentle valley trails to steeper climbs which Jamie always reccies alongside Ellie his Springer Spaniel.
As a child, diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and inspired by the care her received, Jamie wanted to become a nurse. However a dramatic event where he intervened to help save a man’s life made him change course. He became a Volunteer First Responder, while working in the care sector, then left that career to train fulltime as an EMT. He’s now part-way through his Paramedic apprenticeship.
Jamie says that the walking group offers a rare chance for ambulance staff from across Cumbria to decompress and share stories away from the pressures of twelve-hour shifts. They met in Seatoller, Grid Ref NY245137, and spent much of the time hiking in the pouring rain... although spirits remained high throughout!
Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor

Clare explores a circular route in the woodland of Limpsfield Common near Oxted in Surrey. With her is David Sullivan who recalls a recent adventure when he hiked 19,000 feet up Mount Everest to deliver a defibrillator to a Nepali village. David taught the villagers how to use it, and shortly afterwards received a phone call from Passan, one of his guides, telling him the life of a young French climber had been saved by its use.
David’s motivation was losing four friends to sudden cardiac arrest, and the subsequent experience of helping to save the life of another man who had collapsed on a local golf course. This led him away from his longstanding career in traditional roofing. He became obsessed with learning all he could about CPR and defibrillators, and now runs a business that involves training others and trying to improve the technology of defibrillator boxes.
Clare and David began their walk at What3Words: search.fields.lovely Part of their route was on The Greensand Way, a 108 mile long distance trail that starts in Haslemere, Surrey and ends in Hamstreet, Kent. It’s named after sandstone rock which contains the green mineral, glauconite, also known as green sand.
Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor