This blog picks up from where I left off last week – in the middle of our recent trip to the Trossachs. So far we’ve had rain, more rain and a dry forecast with some showers. The rest of the week was only marginally dryer, but short of a weather warning being in place we like to try and get out even if just briefly – so out we went…
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Doune Castle
If Wednesday was competing with Monday for the wettest day of the week, Thursday must surely take the crown for the most uninspiring weather. Persistent drizzle hung around all morning to eventually give way to fog and low cloud, resulting in a rather gloomy atmosphere which felt like the brink of nighttime even at 1pm. Resolute, we headed out into the gloom for a quick walk around the village of Doune near Stirling.
Doune is a historic village which seems to be a bit of a tourist hotspot – perhaps because the castle here featured in the Outlander TV series, doubling as the Mackenzie stronghold of Castle Leoch. When we visited the castle was closed (and I think dogs are only allowed in the grounds anyway), but we did dutifully admire the walls from the outside. The walls that weren’t covered by scaffolding, anyway.
From the castle we picked up a good path leading down to the River Teith. There’s a short circular walk around the village on Walkhighlands, but we just improvised a bit, following the path along the river to eventually loop back around to the castle. We detoured off a short way to visit the historic mill (Sam managed to muster up more enthusiasm for this than I did), before returning to the car park off Castle Hill via the historic Roman Fort (which was, to my grumpy bad weather inflicted mindset, a field with a sign by the entrance).
To be fair I can’t really give this walk a fair review: the weather was so dull and grey as to be truly naff. There were some nice autumn colours though, so it’s not completely whingy on my part. Plus, we stopped off for a good hot lunch at Cafe Circa on our way home too – which is always a guaranteed way to cheer me up. For somewhere seemingly so out of the way it was super busy and I think we were lucky to get a table without booking!
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. This is quite a short dog walk, and I suspect in better weather it could be much busier than our experience was. It’s a livestock free route, but keep an eye on the river and how fast it’s flowing before letting your dog off lead – we kept ours well away as the water was so high. There are a few sections of road walking, but there is a pavement on the busier sections.
Creag an Tuirc
I always like to peruse the visitor book in the cottage to see where other people mention as a highlight from their trip, and the people who’d stayed the week before us had recommended a walk up to the viewpoint at Creag an Tuirc. Intrigued, I had a quick Google, and found a promising short walk on the Walkhighlands website – so I earmarked the Friday morning of our trip for a climb up to the viewpoint (Friday being the first day that looked like having a reasonable chance of a view).
Friday was our last full day in the Trossachs and this walk definitely felt like we’d saved the best until last. For such a short walk, easily completed in an hour or less, it really packs in a lot. Parking at the start is free by the kirk yard in Balquhidder (space for around three cars), where the walk starts off with a visit to Rob Roy’s grave.
Rob Roy is a famous historic outlaw, sometimes pitched as the Scottish Robin Hood, a perception which is perhaps a slightly romanticised view (no doubt helped along by the Liam Neeson film). In reality he operated a Watch, extracting protection money (black mail) from tenants to protect their cattle from raiders. At least he is said to have retrieved any stolen cattle, or to have reimbursed the owner with the value of the cow if he was unable to do so. Kind of like compulsory cow insurance I suppose?
To continue the walk we took the path running up the hill past the kirk yard. This is a lovely quiet woodland walk, using good tracks with minimal mud nearly all the way to the viewpoint – there’s just one slightly muddier section at the final climb.
Creag an Tuirc, or ‘Rock of the Wild Boar’, was the meeting place of Clan MacLaren, where they would assemble in times of danger or importance. Today the spot is marked by a cairn and a bench, where you can admire the splendid view over the forest and Loch Voil. For such low effort its an outstanding view – and will forever by a special place for us, because we got engaged! No one was more surprised than me.
It’s back down almost all the same way. Just before the end, you can take a right hand fork to return to the village a different way, and for 5 minutes extra it is so worth it. A wooden bridge crosses a lovely waterfall – if this was England it would be an attraction in its own right. However, it’s Scotland, where pretty waterfalls are just a standard part of every walk, and so you could easily miss it out if you didn’t know it was there.
Dog friendly rating: 5/5. This is an excellent dog walk, free of stiles and other obstacles, where your dog can be off lead almost all the way around. It was very quiet (we saw just one other dog walker) and there is just a very short section on a quiet road at the end.
Loch Venachar
The walk up to Creag an Tuirc only took an hour or so, leaving plenty of daylight to get out somewhere else. Having been very restricted in where we could go for a walk all week, we were keen to make the most of it!
Sam picked a 4 mile circular route from Walkhighlands which loops through the forest above Loch Venachar. Driving to the start of the walk along the loch we passed two full car parks and I was a little worried we wouldn’t get parked: needlessly, as when we got to our intended start point there was only one other car there.
The first half of the route follows the Rob Roy Way. I have to say I think I’m being tempted away from the Cumbrian Way and Northumberland Coast Path for our next challenge (once we’ve finished the Wainwrights): the Rob Roy Way might have won me over! This 128km long distance path links the towns of Drymen and Pitochry, crossing through some of Scotland’s most beautiful scenery, and has the added benefit of being relatively unknown compared to its neighbour the West Highland Way. We’ve crossed a section of it before when we walked Kenmore Hill in Perthshire, which was one of my unexpected favourites.
The route climbs steadily up to a small lochan, with views across Loch Venachar to Ben Ledi. The gradient is deceptive and I hadn’t realised how far we’d climbed until we started the walk back down to the shoreline – it’s a fair bit steeper than the initial climb was, but it’s still not particularly taxing. Just a few skids on the way down courtesy of Merry pulling like a champ, as always! The views as we descended were my favourite of the walk.
The walk back along the shore of the loch uses a quiet road (which I think might be private). The trees mostly obscure the view, but there is a small promontory onto the loch which has a bench with a lovely view. Sadly this was our final walk in the Trossachs – we were going to try and squeeze in a trip up Conic Hill on the way home, but the weather had other ideas.
Dog friendly rating: 5/5. There are plenty of opportunities for dogs to be off lead, a few chances for swimming, and no stiles or livestock. What more could you want!
Where we stayed
Finding somewhere in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs took a bit of doing, and ultimately I had to sacrifice one of my usual must-have criteria, the all important enclosed garden. However, the cottage that we stayed in was lovely and I’d still recommend it for dog owners – it’s in a quiet enough location that we still felt comfortable letting Coal in the garden off the lead (he is not going to go anywhere without us!). Merry stayed on the lead, as he’d have been off down the road in the blink of an eye.
Stroneslaney Cottage sleeps 2 people and 2 dogs in a fantastic spot close to Strathyre. The cottage is on a quiet rural road and has well stocked garden feeders, meaning we spent the rainy afternoons quite happily watching woodpeckers, nuthatches and red squirrels helping themselves. We sadly didn’t manage to spot the pine marten others reported seeing in the visitor book, but something did snaffle the eggs we put out for it.
The cottage is comfortable and well equipped, with log burners in both the living room and the kitchen. I miss them both very much now that we’re back at home with zero log burners! We also slept very well here as there is no noise disturbance at night and the bedroom was super dark. I think it’s the first time in year I’ve slept past 7.30am!
Dog friendly rating: 3.5/5. A huge plus of the cottage was that we could shut the dogs in the kitchen overnight – no need to worry about Merry jumping on the sofa and scratching it to high heaven. The floors are easy to clean laminate and there was enough space for us all without the dogs getting underfoot – plus, they absolutely loved curling up in front of the log burner.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our week in the Trossachs – it might have rained more than we’d hoped, but it certainly didn’t put too much of a damper on our week. The area was beautiful even in the rather grey and dim weather, and we’ll certainly be coming back to try and bag a hill or two. Just perhaps not in November next time!
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