This week's Open Country is a journey along a stretch of familiar coastline, but also back in time, to a far less familiar landscape. Emily Knight explores the Deep History Coast of North Norfolk, where the crumbling shoreline has given up some of the most impressive fossil remains ever discovered. To help her get a sense of the landscape that came before this one, she meets palaeontologist and author of "Otherlands", Dr Thomas Halliday, who explains what this ancient place would have looked like, how it might have felt to walk through it, and who you might have met along the way.

One of our companions on this stroll through time might have been a true giant of the past - four metres tall and weighing in at ten tonnes - the West Runton Mammoth. It's the most complete mammoth skeleton ever found, buried in the shifting sands of the beach for hundreds of thousands of years, before being discovered after a storm in 1990. While we stroll along a sandy beach, the West Runton Mammoth would have strolled instead along a muddy river-bed through a dense forest, surrounded by sights both familiar to us, and extraordinary: seven-foot tall deer, rhinos and hyaenas. Dr Tori Herridge, evolutionary biologist and elephant expert from the Natural History Museum, is on hand to talk about the life and death of this impressive creature, while local fossil-hunter Michelle Smith gives Emily a lesson in safe and sustainable fossil-hunting.

Alongside these extraordinary animals were people too - of a kind. Not quite our ancestors, more like our very distant cousins, Homo Heidelbergensis and Homo Antecessor both made their mark along this stretch of coastline. Dr David Waterhouse from Norfolk Museum explains how we think they might have lived, and what that tells us about our own origins.

Helen Mark travels to the rolling hills of Aberdeenshire, home of the Cairngorms National Park. Popular with walkers, hikers, nature-lovers and 'munro-baggers' alike, these hills are undoubtedly a beautiful place to visit. But you can ditch your hiking boots for this episode of Open Country, because Helen's exploring in a different way: from the back of a husky-pulled sled!

At the reins is Wattie McDonald, husky-lover, musher, and a veteran of the extraordinary 'Iditarod': the gruelling thousand-mile sled-race across the frozen wastes of Alaska. With his team of sixteen dogs, Wattie navigated treacherous frozen lakes, snow-covered forests, and his own exhaustion to make it across Alaska in one piece: one of very few Scots ever to do so. Back in his home country, the trails are a little shorter and a lot less snowy, but Wattie's up for the challenge nevertheless. As long as his dogs are happy, so is he.

But the real stars of the show are the dogs themselves: Siberian Huskies - a whole kennel-full of them. Krash, Krazy, sweet uncle Kaspar, the veteran one-eyed Keely, and the Pandemic Pups, Kovid and Korona. They're a cuddly bunch, always up for a head-scratch or a tummy-rub, but more than anything these working dogs simply love to run. With their help, Helen speeds through the landscape. Here's hoping the brakes work!

Produced by Emily Knight

Not far from Offa's Dyke in mid-Wales there stands a grove of Coast Redwoods - the oldest and largest of its kind in Europe. Brought over from their native California in the 1850s, the trees - which are still in their infancy - tower above others nearby. The author Tracy Chevalier ('Girl with a Pearl Earring') visited these woods with her husband, plant writer Jonathan Drori, 30 years ago. In her 2016 novel, 'At the Edge of the Orchard' she tells the story of how the trees were collected and brought to Wales by her hero Robert Goodenough. The Redwood Grove stands next to a pinetum which includes other varieties of Redwood, Fir, Cedar and Cypress. It is here that the infamous Leylandii tree was first registered, after two varieties of Cypress, which would not meet naturally in the wild, cross pollinated, creating the fast-growing evergreen. In his book, 'Around the World in 80 Trees', Drori tells the story of how the tree went on to be the source of so many neighbour disputes. In 1958 the Redwood and Pinetum was donated to the Royal Forestry Society by Charles Ackers, who planted many more Coast Redwoods on the site in the 1930s. His daughter, Torill Freeman recalls visits to the woods as a child, and explains why her father dedicated the woods to her mother.

Presented by Felicity Evans

Photo Credit: Website photo taken by Jonathan Drori

Purdown is a large green hilly area on the edge of Bristol and is one of the highest points of the city. It's marked out by two buildings: the telecom tower and the large yellow dower house - a familiar sight to anyone who regularly drives along the nearby M32. In this programme Helen Mark explores the area, finding out about its significance in World War II, and meeting the goats which are now helping to preserve the remains of the gun placements put there to protect the city from bombing raids. She also learns about the history of Stoke Park estate, and goes on a hunt for hidden artwork in the woods.

Produced by Emma Campbell

Jack's Rake is a famous diagonal groove up a Lake District rock face. It's tough, but not too tough - so can a newby climber manage it?

Helping Emily Knight up the face is Anna Fleming, author of Time on Rock, plus Langdale native Bill Birkett who's made a few first ascents in the Lakes. On the way they talk about the rock, the attitude, and the kit.

The producer for BBC audio in Bristol is Miles Warde

A wildlife cameraman, a sea swimmer, a poet and a professional tree climber reflect on their relationship with their local landscape; sea, loch, rocky beach and woodland on the cusp of a new year. From a new understanding of home to the discovery of one’s real self, their reflections are inspiring, insightful and powerful.

In this edition of Open Country, Helen Mark explores the landscape at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. The 2000 acres of parkland were landscaped by Capability Brown, and are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The grounds are also home to a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and earlier this year a colony of rare bees was discovered in its ancient woodland - surviving descendants of indigenous honeybees which were previously thought to have been wiped out. There are also 12,000 acres of farmland, where a new project is underway to try and make the estate carbon neutral. As dusk falls, Helen winds her way though Blenheim's illuminated trail, where more than a million sparkling lights and lasers light up the winter landscape.

Produced by Emma Campbell

In AD122 following the orders of the Emperor Hadrian, work began to protect the north-west frontier of the Roman Empire. Hadrian’s Wall was more than just a barricade. Stretching almost 80 miles from coast to coast and featuring mile castles, barracks, forts, ramparts and settlements it is testimony to the vision and skill of the Roman Empire. As the wall approaches its 1900 Anniversary in 2022, Open Country heads to Northumberland to explore our relationship with walls and their importance with an archaeologist, artist, naturalist and drystone waller.

Produced by Sarah Blunt for BBC Audio in Bristol.

For more information about Hadrians Wall 1900 Anniversary

In 'Wizards and Steam Trains on the West Highland Line', folk musician Ingrid Henderson explores the communities and landscapes which influence her life and work. She lives in Glenfinnan, on the shores of Loch Shiel, where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard before setting off on his much-romanticised, doomed mission to reclaim the English crown for the Stuarts. But in recent years Charlie has been almost supplanted by a fictional rival - Harry Potter. Thousands of tourists are drawn to the area, eager to see the Jacobite steam train, aka Hogwarts Express, crossing the magnificent Glenfinnan viaduct - an iconic scene in the Potter films.

Ingrid talks to Jacobite historian, Charlie MacFarlane, about this clash of cultures and - up at the viaduct - chats with Harry Potter fans who have travelled from as far afield as China, Brazil and the USA to see the Hogwarts Express. She finds out about the history of the West Highland Railway Line with museum curator, Hege Harnaes, as it celebrates its 120th anniversary and takes the train to the fishing port of Mallaig, at the end of the line. It's her home town, where her musical career started.

Former schoolteacher, Denis Rixson, recalls the heyday of the town's fishing industry and Ingrid describes how the coast and waters of this part of Scotland have inspired some of her work.

Produced by Kathleen Carragher

Photo: Alan Wilson, Friends of Glenfinnan station

Leicester was hit hard by the pandemic with long lockdowns and many families affected. At Watermead Country Park close to the city they have chosen to remember those who lost their lives, the essential workers and everyone who has played their part in these hard times. Trees have been planted along a new memorial walk in this park, which was once a huge quarry.

Roo Peake helped to crowdfund for the walk in memory of her friend and fellow charity member at Leicestershire Masaya Link, Michael Gerard. Helen Mark meets her, along with the Head of County Parks Richard Hunt and Head Ranger Dale Osborne, to discover more about how this park on the edge of the city is constantly adapting as it grows from reclaimed industrial land to a thriving habitat for wildlife and sanctuary for people nearby.

Helen then travels to the National Memorial Arboretum in the National Forest to find out about the beginnings of a national Covid memorial which will use trees and water to heal the scars left by industry and help the whole country find a place to remember.

Produced by Helen Lennard