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 socks you in the eye as you reach the ridgeline. And it gives a natural horseshoe to compare and contrast all four Minnigaff summits.
Larg is gently grassy – it’ll mislead you into thinking the walk ahead will be an easy one. Lamachan, too, is grassy, but leads into a knobbly ridgeline, excitingly bypassed by a path across the top of the northern slope. That path is narrow and slightly rocky, and was made in the first place by goats.
Curleywee is just as nice as its name. Thread up among scree and small crags to the grassy hollow at its top. This is southwest Scotland, so you’ll have that top to yourself. The route threads down among more small crags onto a moorland of orange grasses and a dozen sky-coloured lochans. For your fourth hill, massive, sprawling Millfore is heathery to start with, past the peaty little Black Loch. It’s grassy above, past the high-cupped White Lochan; and the descent over Drigmorn offers the third hilltop lochan, frillingly named as Fuffock.
Take the forest road running northwest. After 1km it runs alongside Penkiln Burn. In another 2km the ground up left has newly planted trees, and views open ahead to show Larg Hill. The track crosses a first small concrete bridge, and in 500 metres more it crosses a second one and is about to re-enter trees.
Turn up left, alongside the tree edge and Benroach Burn. After 300 metres the right-hand (north) bank is obstructed by windblown trees. Cross to the awkward rough ground on the left side of the stream. Just above, a clear gap continues uphill, east. (The gap separates young trees on the right from newly planted trees on the left.)
The ride arrives at the wall at the plantation top, south of Sheuchanower. Turn north, with the wall on your right, across Sheuchanower’s slight rise, then up the grassy slope towards Larg Hill. Here, at the natural treeline, scrubby dwarf pine has been left to itself on the slope to your right. At a wall junction, keep ahead to the summit cairn on Larg Hill.
Head northeast, to the left of another wall, down to Nick of the Brushy. The col is a small meltwater channel, from when ice filled the Loch Trool valley on your left. That same glacier has dumped granite boulders along the ridge. A small path leads up Lamachan Hill. The summit is marked by a gateway gap in a falling stone wall.
Larg Hill from the slopes of Lamachan (granite erratic boulder in the foreground)
Head roughly northeast across the plateau, following occasional old iron fence posts, to Bennanbrack. Now descend southeast on a lumpy ridge. Look out for the small goat path just down on the left; it takes an exciting line just below the ridge crest.
After Nick of Corners Gate, the goat path contours across the north side of a hump called Milldown to arrive in Nick of Curleywee. Go through a wall gap and head up the steep face of Curleywee.
Curleywee on the approach from Nick of Curleywee
Descend Curleywee with care. Head southeast across a slight col, over the spur top of Gaharn, and gently down for another 50 metres or so. Now turn down
