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Ellie’s on her home patch in the Cotswolds, surrounded by the beautiful Five Valleys where she learnt a love for wildlife from a very young age. Ellie meets up with Alan Sumnall from the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to see the conservation of her beloved Cotswolds rivers. Ellie discovers which invertebrates are thriving underneath the surface, indicating just how healthy the river is. 

Actor and musician David Essex travels back to East Sussex, where he spent long childhood summers hop picking with his family. Like many of the women and children of East London in the fifties, David spent his holidays exploring the countryside creating life-long memories in both Kent and Sussex. We join him as he takes a trip down memory lane to where he first experienced the sights and smells of the great outdoors.

Actress Nina Wadia takes a road trip to her favourite part of the Scottish Highlands. Her journey starts on the road through Glencoe where mountains Buachaille Etive Mor and the Three Sisters loom on either side - like sleeping dinosaurs. Nina takes a break and stops for lunch at Loch Leven enjoying the locally caught seafood – and the beautiful view - before putting on a helmet and scaling one of the UK’s most impressive waterfalls. Grey Mare’s Tail in Kinlochleven is where Scotland’s first Via Ferrata or iron road has been built on the rock face, but will Nina manage to scale it?

Just across the valley from Ellie’s home is the Golden Valley, named for the glorious light that floods through it. It’s here in Ellie’s late teens where she would come and reflect. Ellie meets up with local artist and old friends John and Fiona Owen who have made the Golden Valley their home and discovers the valley inspires their art.  

DJ, Edith Bowman takes us on a photographic journey back to her roots in Scotland. As a child she discovered photography using her father's hand me down cameras. Now as an adult she's back hoping to recapture the coast she knew so well as a child. 

Meet Falkland’s veteran Simon Weston as he shows us around his beloved South Wales. We explore the Brecon Beacons, where as a young man, Simon used this landscape as both his playground and later as a soldier, his training ground. We discover how this beautiful and rugged landscape can be a dangerous place and at times can be unforgiving. We also take a trip back in time and visit Nelson Mountain, a place close to his heart and a place he uses to escape and find solitude. 

Sitting in the depths of the valley is the abandoned and unfinished Victorian Gothic style manor house, Woodchester Mansion. Mystery surrounds the building and Ellie recalls her visits here when she was younger and remembers fighting off the fear as darkness fell. She meets up with Dr Rodger Ransome who tells her how the site has SSSI status thanks to an important colony of Lesser and Greater Horseshoe Bats. Together they go in search of the colony. 

We kick off this year’s ‘My Countryside’ with Michelin star chef Michael Caines in his home county of Devon. We join Michael on a wild camping adventure as he heads out on foot exploring the wilds of Dartmoor. Michael discusses how the larder of Devon inspired him to become a chef. After a night under the stars he forages some wild mushrooms and cooks up a feast using wild beef from local cattle that graze the moors.

Ellie is about to get a view of her beloved landscape that she has never experienced before. Since she can remember, there has always been a gliding club on her doorstep but she has never ventured to the skies, until now. Ellie meets up with Chief Flying Instructor Gerry Holden who tells her that the landscape here has created a perfect spot for gliding. Ellie takes to the sky with a birds eye view on the valleys she has cherished for years and soars above the landscape that has shaped her.