[Amy]

As Castaway Ben Fogle ditches his BB lover, he reveals he's still desperate for true romance - and to buy a Scottish island Exclusive

CASTAWAY hunk Ben Fogle has split with Big Brother's Vanessa Nimmo,but admits he's desperate to start a family.

The Countryfile presenter ended his affair with the blonde South African after just four months together.

And it seems it was Ben's insatiable lust for adventure that drove them apart.

He spent eight months researching his book,The Teatime Islands, and is about to go to Namibia for five weeks next month.Next year, he plans to row across the Atlantic.

The 30-year admitted he needed to get the travelling bug out of his system before he finally settled down.

Ben said: 'I'm on the road a lot and I absolutely love my job. 'I wouldn't change it for the world, but I don't have as much time to put into relationships as I'd like.

'It would be unfair on children and a wife or girlfriend to spend all these months disappearing off to different parts of the world and risking yourself doing things like rowing the Atlantic.

'I'd always had in my mind that 30 was the perfect time for having a child but I haven't got enough time to fully put into a relationship. But that's coming. 'My biological clock is ticking. I'm starting to look at kids and I want some now.

'But now I'm single, I want to get as many of these things out of my system as possible.

'Once they are done, I can concentrate on finding someone and starting a family.' Despite the couple's blonde good looks, it was always a strange pairing.Vanessa was booed by the crowd when she was voted out of the Big Brother house while Ben is seen as one of life's good guys.

And only last month Vanessa admitted Ben was 'the one' in a magazine interview.

He sent her flowers after her eviction.They met for lunch and went on holiday to Spain. But while Vanessa pursued the bottom end of the Big Brother fame game with a revealing photoshoot with housemate Shell Jubin for a men's magazine, Ben was planning his next big adventure.

It will follow his 150-mile run through the Sahara desert. A documentary about it, The Sand Marathon, will be shown tomorrow afternoon on BBC2. 'We've split up and it's very sad, but it was a mutual thing,' said Ben. 'There wasn't a bust-up or someone else and we're still friends.'

It'll be to Scotland that Ben, who also hosts Animal Park and was recently up here filming Cash In The Attic for the BBC, returns to sort out his love life. For the public school educated son of original Alfie actress Julia Foster plans to settle down in Scotland.

He tried to buy the 180-acre Eilean Mullagrach island in the Summer Isles, off Ullapool, for a reported £70,000, but lost out to a higher bidder.

After his Atlantic row in November 2005, he will concentrate on his ultimate dream of owning an island. He said: 'I love Scotland and I'm always looking for an island. The search goes on.'

Ben spent Easter as a child holidaying on Eigg, which was one reason why he applied for the Castaway experiment on Taransay in 2000. He was one of30 people who gave up the rat race for a year and tried a simpler but harder way of life. 'I know you're not really supposed to revisit the past,' he said. 'But my time on Taransay was so amazing that I have this romantic notion that wants to recapture it.

'The sensible part of me knows that buying an island won't recapture that, but part of me says maybe.'

He was back on Taransay two months ago for the wedding of fellow Castaway Tanya Cheadle to Paul Overton, one of the show's producers. Anyone who watched Castaways will not be surprised to learn there was bad weather on the big day.

'The inevitable huge storm hit on the day of the wedding,' said Ben. 'It looked like it was going to be scuppered and we weren't going to make it.

'But somehow a little gap in the weather appeared, giving us just enough time to zoom over in a boat.

'They got married on the beach and, before the weather closed in again, we went back to Harris.

'It was just amazing because I caught up with a lot of friends I hadn't seen for a long time.

'It was very nostalgic, like I'd never left in many ways. 'And it's made me more determined than ever to buy an island, which in turn will make me settle down so I can start a family.'

But it will take quite a woman to keep him rooted to the spot. Ben is a cross between Hugh Grant, crocodile hunter Steve Irwin and David Attenborough.

He's been deported from Pitcairn for being a spy and a smuggler, spent time in Latin America on a turtle conservation project, and beaten ex-EastEnders star Sid Owen in a boxing match for Sport Relief.

AS if that's not enough, last month he was rescued by an RAF helicopter after he and his Countryfile team were stranded in a gale while filming on the Skerries, off the coast of Angelsey.

Their own helicopter had plunged from the deck of a ship in rough seas. He laughed: 'I think I've always been an adventurer.

'I lived in Latin America when I was younger and gave upmy job and career to try the Castaway project.

'The streak has always been there, but now I'm finding my feet and taking slightly bigger opportunities, like the sand marathon.'

The Marathon Des Sables, which Princes William and Harry may do next year, is a gruelling six-day, 151-mile endurance race across the Sahara in Morocco. It's not for the faint-hearted and Ben ended up on crutches with blood poisoning.

'It started as a drunken bet with friends,' he revealed.

'They said I should try the London Marathon. I said I wanted to do something more extreme like The Marathon Des Sables. 'The unanimous decision was that there was no way I'd possibly do that and I was drunk enough to make a gentleman's bet. I applied but they were full up, so I was put on a waiting list.

'About six weeks before the event in April, I got a call saying I was going to the Sahara. So I only had six weeks to train for one of the toughest things you can possibly do.'

Since his London gym wouldn't let him take a treadmill into the sauna to reproduce the kind of heat he'd experience in the desert, Ben wore four rugby shirts to sweat it out during his running training.

He said: 'It's a marathon every day, but on the third day you have to do 50 miles in a day and a night.

'You become incredibly dehydrated and the nights are freezing.Your body is in a complete quandary.You are exhausted, dehydrated and start to hallucinate.'

There were 600 competitors, including a Scot running in a kilt.

'There are two camels which follow the whole race,' said Ben. 'If you're passed by the camels, you are disqualified. I was never passed by them, but they weren't far behind.

'But I finished, which was fantastic because everyone, including the doctor back home, didn't think I would be able to cope with it.'

But only having six weeks of training took its toll. Ben lost two stone and his feet swelled by two sizes. They were covered in blisters, rubbed raw by sand in his boots.

'I got enormous blisters. The French doctors who look after the competitors remove the entire blisters and skin so they can keep going.

'I actually ended up getting blood poisoning and having to go to a hospital in Morocco. 'I was given a course of antibiotics and, when I came back to London, I was on crutches for a week.'

But it hasn't stopped him looking for more adventure. 'I'd love to do the North and South Poles and climb Everest. 'I always say I add life to my days not days to my life.'

#The Sand Marathon is on BBC 2 tomorrow at 2.45pm

Daily Record

[BusyBee]

I read this the other day. Perhaps Vanessa will get together with Jason now lol