The boatman will take you right around the island before landing at the pier. Poisoning of the island’s rats has allowed the ground-nesting puffins to recover, while there have always been gulls, gannets and everything else that goes squawk and drops a splat onto the deck beside you. Bring binoculars and a splat-proof hat.
Ailsa Craig north end, with remains of a foghorn tower
The ascent of the island is straightforward, if strenuous. From the pier, head across the island’s small patch of level ground onto a path that slants steeply up left. It zigzags back right to reach the ruined Castle of Ailsa, perched a third of the way up the slope.
Gulls nest alongside the path as it slants up to the right, working up the eastern slope of the island then straight uphill to the trig point, with its magnificent view.
If the summit is in cloud, a compass bearing is useful to ensure you head down the correct slope. Directions other than east lead to a lot of seagulls and possibly a messy and dung-smeared death.
Return down the small path to the cottages near the pier.
A former tramway along the shoreline allows a strangely horizontal walk towards either of the massive abandoned foghorns seen from the cruise around the island.
WALK 3
Cairnsmore of Fleet
| Start/Finish | Cairnsmore Hill car park (NX 463 632) |
| Distance | 14.5km (9 miles) |
| Ascent | 750m (2500ft) |
| Approx time | 5¼hrs |
| Terrain | Hill path, rough grassy plateau and slope, moorland track |
| Max altitude | Cairnsmore of Fleet, 711m |
| Maps | Landranger 83 (Newton Stewart); Explorer 319 (Galloway S) |
| Public transport | Bus 500/X75 (Dumfries–Stranraer) stops at Palnure |
| Parking | Turn off A75 at Muirfad, 800 metres east of Palnure. The minor road bends left across a stream and between piers of a former rail bridge. Ahead 300 metres is a ‘P’ sign – parking is in the disused track on the right. |
Cairnsmore of Fleet is the southernmost 2000ft (600m) summit in Scotland, and its isolated position above the Solway Firth explains its wide views, and also the memorial to crashed aeroplanes at the summit. Cairnsmore is also a high-altitude bog of national importance. However, that area – with granite and peat as austere as Craignaw (Walk 6) – lies to the north of the summit. This gentler route is on comfortable grass, with a mysterious old path (perhaps formed by peat cutters) zigzagging up the wide slope above the lowlands of the Cree.
After the pleasant plateau wander, the descent is rather more rugged, with some granite boulder-fields to weave around. But at the slope foot another old track leads conveniently across the moor back to Cairnsmore farm.
Cairnsmore of Fleet, seen across the Cree estuary
Continue up the track and through a little iron gate onto the driveway towards Cairnsmore farm. Keep ahead for 1km up the estate track. At the first buildings bear right on the main track, then turn right at a small sign on a path through rhododendron and laurel. At a higher track turn left, and continue to its end above Cairnsmore farm.
Take the gate ahead, and bear right up a field to a gate at its top left corner. A clear path runs uphill through plantations. At a signed junction, keep ahead, signposted for Cairnsmore summit.
The path crosses a track (stone bench here), then emerges onto open hill and crosses a ladder stile. It runs uphill to pass through a gap in a fallen granite wall, above which it zigzags quite steeply up. As the slope eases, the path is less visible but is marked by cairns. At one of these cairns it bends left, north, passing a memorial to airmen just before the trig point and shelter cairn at Cairnsmore summit.
Three peaks hereabouts are ‘Cairnsmore’; the others are of Carsphairn (Walk 8) and of Dee, which is densely planted and not an attractive walk. All three of them are granite hills. The name, meaning ‘large stone-pile hill’, may refer not to their height but to their sprawling granite-hill shapes.
Turn southeast down the gently sloping summit plateau, soon with cliffs dropping to the left. Posts of a former fence guide down to a col (Nick of Clashneach), where the route passes through a gap in an old wall. Head uphill, southeast, and at the slope top turn south along the level plateau. At its far end is the large, ancient cairn of Knee of Cairnsmore.
Looking west from Craignelder, in the rough plateau northwards from Cairnsmore of Fleet
Descend southwest over grassy ground on a vague spur-line. As the ground steepens, find a grassy way down between granite boulder-fields. Cross the head of a shallow stream hollow onto the moorland beyond, named as Knocktim. Turn southwest along the crest of this on short mossy heather, and after 400 metres or so join a faint old track. This track appears on modern Explorer maps and old Landrangers.
At the tip of Knocktim (NX 497 634) the track bends right, west. It runs down rough peaty pasture, becoming a stony farm track and joining Graddoch Burn, with forest plantations opposite. The track runs down to a gate, where it fades into a field. Head down the right edge next to the stream to another gate. Through this, the track continues down to the left of the stream, across it at a bridge with 5 ton weight limit, and continues downhill, now to the right of the stream, to a track T-junction near a house.
Turn right, and in about 150 metres turn down left in the laurel-wood path you arrived on. Follow the track below Cairnsmore farm back to the car park.
WALK 4
Minnigaff Hills
| Start/Finish | Auchenleck Bridge, 6km northeast of Newton Stewart (NX 447 705) |
| Distance | 21km (13 miles) |
| Ascent | 1300m (4300ft) |
| Approx time | 8hrs |
| Terrain | Forest roads, grassy hill ridges; pathless slopes of grass and short heather; rough forest ride near walk start, and fairly rough descent from Curleywee |
| Max altitude | Lamachan Hill, 717m |
| Maps | Landranger 77 (Dalmellington); Explorer 319 (Galloway S); Harveys Galloway Hills (omits tracks at start and end) |
| Parking | Roadside pull-in at forest road end beside Auchenleck bridge |
The Minnigaff Hills may be small, but they’re as shaggy and wild as the mountain goats that roam over them. The approach from the south makes sure the northward view of the Merrick and its surrounding lochs