This week on Monday 29 January you will be able to enjoy the 4th installment of the popular BBC Documentry ‘The Forest’ Filmed in the Galloway Forest park and surrounding area the program airs on BBC One Scotland, 7.30-8.00pm
Navigating hundreds of miles of forest roads are a fleet of highly skilled truckers whose job it is to track down the timber stacks, load them using cranes and ferry the valuable cargo to mills north and south of the border.
This episode goes inside the cabs of three Kings of the Forest Roads, Jimmy, Eric and Norman who between them have 85 years of driving articulated lorries.
As narrator Mark Bonnar says: “This is more than a job – it’s a way of life.”
The cameras start out with them at Castle Douglas at 4am before the sun is up, and their 15 hour day properly kicks in.
With new harvesting sites a constant in Galloway Forest, the Forestry Commission must find 500,000 tonnes of stone to build and maintain roads every year. An explosion is planned at a forest quarry to produce rock for a new road masterminded by Forestry Engineer Elaine McClymont. But before it can be given the go-ahead Environment Officer Gareth Ventress needs to check for any pine marten activity in the area. Thankfully for Elaine, specially set up cameras reveal no activity and the quarry explosion can go ahead. Gareth also goes to a secret location, deep within the Forest to check a golden eagle feeding station.
Says Gareth: “If you find a protected species in an area to be felled, we can stop all the operations to protect the wildlife involved to make sure that they breed successfully.”
At the Balloch O’Dee campsite, owner James has double-booked an old byre he’s frantically converting in time for the start of the summer season.
You can catch up on all the previous episodes HERE
