We open our journey through Kent on Swimmers Beach in Dover. With 34 channel swims under his belt, Kevin Murphy has been crowned The King of the Channel. At the age of 74, his own swimming days are over, so today he is training accountant Rob Sisley, who hopes to make the crossing next week.
On the River Medway, we race Dragons. Once an Olympic class racing yacht, Dragons still attract some of the world's best sailors. Today we join Quentin Strauss on board his boat, Whisper. Meanwhile, in the old Chatham Dockyard, Leanne Clark is ropemaking, a tradition that goes back to before the days when HMS Victory was rigged in the dock. The 1300-foot-long rope walk uses machinery installed in Nelson's day and still produces thousands of feet of rope a week.
A few miles inland we meet plant collector Tom Hart Dyke at Lullingstone Castle, a stately home that pre-dates the Normans. Today Tom is tackling one of the most dangerous jobs any horticulturalist can do, re-potting the world's most venomous plant, Dendrocnide Moroides, also known as the Queensland Stinger. A relative of our Stinging Nettle, the pain from its stings can last a year, something, sadly, Tom can attest to.
Having survived our encounter with a stinger, we head to the Isle of Sheppey and the Elmley National Nature Reserve. Here, 200 hungry residents are waiting for their tea. Herding those sheep onto new pastures is Reserve Manager Gareth Fulton, who is in charge of one of the most important wetland habitats in the South of England, a wild area just 40-miles from the centre of London.
