All Roads Lead Home S01E02: The trouble is…you can’t see where the trouble is.

So today's programme takes us on Stephen‘s journey through Ireland. We begin where Stephen proposed to his now wife, giving her the option of saying yes or having a tumble down the adjacent cliff!

Trek 1: Minoun Mountain
Shape of the land, if the first natural navigation principle of this episode. Looking at hills and valleys, we can get to know the lay of the land over time. In this situation we can see that the Atlantic is to the West with the land to the East. This helps our intrepid explorers find South West.

Upon finding the Virgin Mary they use the idea of temperature. Feeling the difference in temperature of things like headstones. The Southern aspect of objects is likely to be warmer than the Northerly aspect. This is a really good technique as we see that the weather is closing in and there’s no sun to be seen.

A really good idea, and one that they use on this trek, is that of looking where you’ve come from. This is really important when wandering in places such as woodlands. It really helps when you’re on the return leg as you’ll recognise groups of trees as you come back across them. As they find on this trek, the statue of Mary helps them find direction by looking back at her.

Looking at buildings, Tristran explains that some buildings are built to avoid having an end pointing directly at the South Westerly winds.

Leg 2: Ballycroy National Park / Peat Bog
Quickly getting their direction between a short break in the cloud, the became walking on their way to Callaghan House. Storm-felled trees are the next natural navigation technique.

Apparently the only wind that really gets into the woodland is storm wind. If we can see lots of trees felled in the same direction, we can use this over distance to keep track of the direction that we’re going.

At the fork in the road they need to head South West…but which way is that? The ‘Private No Entry’ sign signals that they shouldn’t go down the left path – but after what seems a long time – they start to look to their natural navigation techniques. Eventually they do head towards the ‘Private No Entry’ sign and glimpse Callaghan House. A little joke regarding the weather vane, shows that not only solar panels can be used for navigation by buildings.

The only thing that takes longer than figuring out directions is which vintage vehicle they get to travel in on their way to the destination. Sue ends up driving a tractor, with Stephen in a Meercedes, and Angela in a Morris Minor!

Ballycroy leads them towards the destination bog. The wind guides them this time. Sue makes a really good point that while the wind can die down and the sun be blocked by cloud – the landscape is the only constant. Using the mountains they walked yesterday, they keep an eye on the direction in conjunction with other techniques.

The next navigation technique is that of the Gorse bush. We see that the sheep shelter in the Gorse on the North Eastern side. This can be seen by the wool stuck to the branches of the bush. This helps them to their destination and some experience of Peat cutting.

Leg 3: Peat Bog – Stephen’s parent’s houses.
This seems to be the hardest walk to navigate so far. We don’t seem to be seeing many natural navigation techniques. Sue and Stephen seem to spend ages looking for a fence post, while Alison has a break.

We finally get to a navigation technique – Spider webs! There’s no point in a spider spinning a web that will be immediately blown away. We see the team use a spider’s web in a tuft of grass to find North East. This replaces the fence post and they’re off again.