During our stay in Galloway, we took advantage of the area’s border with Ayrshire to ‘sample’ a flavour of the outdoors in a part of Scotland totally new to us. Ayrshire is somewhere we’ve never been, not even to drive through, but which I’ve heard lots of people rave about. For some reason though it’s never made it on to my list: I think I’ve always been mildly put off by its proximity to Glasgow, and assumed it would be busier than we like our countryside walks.
Nevertheless, it was too close to resist, and so we hopped in the car and made the very scenic drive north through Galloway Forest Park to the shores of Loch Doon. The drive was actually a lot more scenic than it should have been: the sat nav tried to send us down a forest drive which was closed to motorised vehicles, meaning we ended up needing to detour an additional hour to get to Loch Doon. Safe to say we used the map rather than the sat nav for the return journey.
Arriving slightly later than planned due to our detour, we parked up at Doon Castle for a poke around the ruins. The castle was built towards the end of the 1200s, possibly by the legendary Robert the Bruce, on an island in Loch Doon. The development of a hydroelectric scheme on the loch in the 1930s saw the castle deconstructed and re-built brick by brick on the shores of the loch instead, so that it wouldn’t be lost to rising water levels.
There isn’t masses to see at the castle and so we set out intending to follow a 3.5km route from Walkhighlands. However, the 6 foot high bracken growing across the path, and my rather full bladder after a 2 hour drive, meant that this became less and less appealing as the bracken made me soggier and soggier. 30 seconds into our battle through the bracken we made an executive decision to abandon the walk and head to the Roundhouse Cafe for some lunch and to re-group (and to use their loo – I must’ve looked desperate because the nice lady behind the counter told me the gents’ was free and the same inside as the ladies’).
Having refuelled, we set out on a short walk down Ness Glen, which starts from the cafe. I must confess I was expecting this to be a mega easy stroll, and while it was short and not too technical, it certainly is one where you’d benefit from putting your walking boots rather than wandering along in trainers. Happily, I had indeed put my boots on.
The route starts off by heading down the road to pick up a track running along the river Doon. Immediately it felt like we’d been plunged into a sub-tropical jungle, with the water rushing through the gorge on our right and the glen positively bursting with greenery. It’s the kind of walk (in summer) where it doesn’t matter than there’s no mountain views, because the amount and variety of green is so pleasant.
While it’s clear where you need to go with an obvious path, it’s rocky and slippery in many places, with exposed tree routes and slabs of rock. It’s not steep or hugely difficult, but requires you to pay attention and think about where you’re putting your feet. We crossed several bridges down here which had been installed where the path would otherwise be dangerous or impassable: I’m not convinced they’ve had much recent care and attention as they seemed a bit precarious in places!
Eventually we reached a junction on the path and left the river to climb uphill. It’s a short but fairly steep climb, bringing you out at the top of the gorge to return back towards the start. Happily, there’s plenty of foliage growing up at the side of the path to hide the drop below – but make sure to keep clear of the edge. The walk along this section of the walk felt much shorter than the outward trail along the river – probably because it was so much easier to walk on. We even got a view in one place where the trees cleared enough to see the hill nearby.
Getting back to the car, we decided to treat ourselves to a cake from the cafe. We sat at one of the outside tables and, I couldn’t believe it, but we actually saw a pair of Ospreys in the (far, far) distance flying over the trees above Loch Doon. I didn’t even know that Ospreys nested here until we saw the Osprey viewing station sign – all of those unsuccessful attempts to spot them in the Cairngorms and we just stumbled across them by accident! There’s also a visitor centre here with a webcam feed from the Ospreys’ nest, so you can see them when they aren’t out flying around.
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. This is a cracking stile free, quiet, livestock free walk. However, we kept our dogs on leads throughout for safety reasons: the river properly rushes through the gorge here with a strong current, and there’s no way either of ours could resist a dip. Then, once you’re high up, there’s a big drop off to the left.
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