Grand Tours of Scotland's Rivers: Season 3, Episode 1

3 - 1: Quietly Flows the Don

Paul explores the River Don from its source in the Grampians near Cock Bridge, downstream to Aberdeen. He meets kilted Highlanders, sculptors, eccentrics and bees along the way.
The River Don rises in wild land, high on the moors of the Grampian mountains. Paul follows its easterly flow from the famous Cock Bridge, where he encounters the Lonach Highlanders and a clan chief with two feathers in his cap carrying relics of the Battle of Culloden. Close to Strathdon, Paul meets an artist and sculptor who creates lifelike creatures from scrap metal, and then learns how the Aberdeen Angus became a world-beating cattle breed.
At Alford, he explores an unusual transport museum and hears about an eccentric and brilliant postman who invented a steam automobile. A trip in a vintage Rolls-Royce takes Paul further along the course of the river. At Kemnay, he visits the huge quarry that once provided granite for prestigious buildings across the UK. As the river nears the sea, Paul meets a woman who wove overcoats for the Red Army. He then helps a Bulgarian couple harvest honey from their black Scottish bees before reaching the mouth of the river on the North Sea coast.