Galloway Forest – Rowan's Recommended Riding Routes

Tour de Galloway day 7 (final stage): Newton Stewart Loop

Route – Newton Stewart to Minnigaff to Creebridge to Newton Stewart. For route map click here.

See route on Strava.

Weather – mainly cloudy but warm and dry with very little wind.
Bike type – road bike
Distance travelled – 9.35 miles
Riding time – 39 minutes
Maximum speed – 26.2 mph
Average speed – 14.4 mph
Height climbed – 476 feet

On the final day of our summer holiday in Galloway, Dad and I just had time for a short cycle around the Newton Stewart area. Since I had been the quickest over the first 6 days of the “tour”, the final stage was more or less a procession to celebrate my amazing victory over Dad… Anyway, the route may have been short but it turned out to be one of the most pleasant of the entire week.

We started off by following the river Cree northwards on the cycle path of Cycle Route no.73 for the mile or so into Newton Stewart. The path ends when you reach Aldi and Sainsburys and we then had to cycle through a car park and along a back street until it ran out and rejoined the main road through town. There we turned right and then right again over the old bridge across the River Cree. Just over the bridge we then turned left and followed the minor road out of town. We cycled gradually uphill along the narrow, fern-lined road, through the trees for a mile or before the trees parted to give us a magnificent view northwards across the valley to Glen Trool away in the distance. It was

one of the best views we’d had all week and the highest mountain in the region The Merrick was clearly visible. The road was completely deserted and was so peaceful to cycle on. After a few miles we reached the high point on the road and turned a corner to the right and one of the most impressive hills in the area – Cairnsmore of Fleet – came into view. After seeing this hill from a distance and from other angles earlier in the week, the close up “side view” was an unexpected surprise. After that we sped down the slight hill to the junction with the A712 road.

The A712 road is commonly known as the Queens Way and is a stunning road to travel on through the heart of the Galloway Forest from New Galloway to Newton Stewart. Despite being an “A” road it is quite quiet and looks like it would be a fantastic road to cycle on. Today though, we only had time to ride on the few miles back to Newton Stewart and that was so much fun. It was a lovely road surface, all slightly downhill and very fast with nice views and it was so quiet that we didn’t see any traffic whatsoever. The perfect cycling road you might say… Soon, we turned right and cycled through Creebridge on the outskirts of Newton Stewart and back across the bridge into Newton Stewart again. This time we avoided the cycle path and rode up the main street through town and back to Nether Barr via the fairly quiet A714 road.

It was a very short but rather nice way to end our Tour de Galloway. Galloway is an amazing area of Scotland to go on holiday. If you like peace and quiet, beautiful beaches, walking in the hills and forests and most importantly, cycling, you would love it there. I’ll definitely be returning there soon!

Tour de Galloway day 6: Glenluce Loop

Route – Newton Stewart to Wigtown to Bladnoch to Luce Bay to Achenmalg to Glenluce to New Luce to Challoch to Newton Stewart. For route map click here.

See route on Strava.

Weather – bright but fairly cloudy, some sunshine, warm with a bit of a breeze.
Distance travelled – 50.86 miles
Riding time – 3 hours 32 minutes
Maximum speed – 29.5 mph
Average speed – 14.4 mph
Height climbed – 2035 feet

Dad and I have done a lot of evening cycle rides this year. Because it stays light till quite late at night in the summer in Scotland, it means you can actually manage to get a decent length of cycle in before bedtime. The longest evening ride we’ve ever done was on day 6 of our holiday in Galloway in July. Dad thought my planned route was a bit ambitious and was worried we’d have to cycle back in the dark, but after an early tea, we were on the road before 5:30pm as we began our race against the setting sun…

As with many of our Galloway routes, we began by heading down the quiet back road to Wigtown before scooting through the town centre and onto the A714 for the mile or so south west to Bladnoch. It was Galloway’s equivalent of “rush hour” so the A road was relatively busy with 3 or 4 cars having to overtake us along the way… We crossed the impressive bridge next to the distillery, over the River Bladnoch and then almost immediately, turned right off the “busy” road onto the B7005. A quieter road you could

not imagine as we cycled generally west or south west through The Machars for an endless number of miles through peaceful countryside. There were very few settlements at all other than occasional farms and almost no signs of life apart from cows and sheep in the fields. It was nice but rather bleak as well and a bit of a plod as we were heading slightly uphill and straight into the rather strong wind all the way. Eventually we spotted the sea ahead and the road headed steeply downhill to Luce Bay.

Luce Bay looked like it would be a lovely place to visit on a sunny day. There is an endless stoney beach there right next to the road and you could image that when the tide goes out, there would be miles of sand and mudflats to enjoy. Today, the wind was rather annoying so we didn’t stop this time and continued on along the A747, first along the coast and then uphill through Achenmalg which seems to be some sort of a holiday village. Soon after the village we turned left onto a narrow back road that took us straight back down to the coast again and an even prettier part of Luce Bay, before heading north for a couple of miles. At the junction we crossed over the busy A75 road to enter the town of Glenluce.

Our journey then continued north through beautiful tree covered countryside, along a lovely smooth, deserted road. It was perfect cycling conditions and the trees even gave us shelter from the wind as we passed Glenluce Abbey along the way. The road steadily climbed uphill but we hardly noticed as the gradient was shallow for most of the time and we were really enjoying this part of the ride. Soon we arrived at a village called New Luce and it was here that Dad had to consult the map to make sure we didn’t miss the turning that would take us back to Newton Stewart. We almost did miss it actually as it was one of the most narrow roads we’ve been on and Dad was slightly concerned that it would turn out to be a dead end… Thankfully it wasn’t (though after a couple of miles we did see a dead end sign straight ahead at one point, resulting in Dad panicking for a minute before realising our road was just hidden from view as it turned round to the right!) and after a steady but easy climb up to the top of an open moor, we were rewarded with some amazing close up views of a massive wind farm. The turbines seemed to go on forever as we cycled along the smooth narrow road and it almost felt as though we were cycling along the top of the world for miles and miles and miles. It was probably one of the best roads I’ve ever cycled on and will definitely be going back there.

After the wind farm, the road took us gradually downhill for quite some time, in and out of the trees with the low sun shining through the branches as we passed some small lochs on the right. After a while we came to a junction with the B7027 where we turned right and rode through the edge of the Galloway Forest for a while on one of the smoothest roads I’ve ever experienced. We saw evidence of lots of forestry operations going on and there were piles of logs everywhere, but at this time of night there was nobody working and we had the road and the forest to ourselves.

Soon, we came to the A714 and sped the last few miles back down the hill to Newton Stewart. It was getting quite late (almost (9:30 pm) by the time we got back to our accommodation but it was light enough that we hadn’t even needed to put our lights on until the final couple of miles: we had beaten the setting sun with several minutes to spare! Our Glenluce loop had been an amazing circular route through hugely varied and picturesque landscapes with almost nobody else on the road. A highly recommended evening out!

Tour de Galloway day 2 (mountain stage): Glen Trool Forest and South Ayrshire Alps

Route – Newton Stewart to Glentrool to Straiton to Loch Trool to Glentrool to Newton Stewart. For route map click here.

See route on Strava.

Weather – Cloudy and cool to start with but hot and sunny after lunch. Not much wind.
Bike type – road bike
Distance travelled – 77.67 miles
Riding time – 5 hours 51 minutes
Maximum speed – 33.8 mph
Average speed – 13.3 mph
Height climbed – 4898 feet

On the second day of our summer holidays Dad and I were up nice and early and after a breakfast of Aldi’s version of Special K (surprisingly tasty and very cheap), we were out on our bikes before 9am. Before going to bed the night before, I had planned a very long route for us which turned out to be rather more hilly than expected. But I really like hills so we had a cracking day out in some of the most beautiful countryside in the south of Scotland.

To start with we took the cycle path alongside the River Cree into Newton Stewart where we saw a heron creeping around in the shallow water looking for its fishy breakfast. Then, after a brief spell on the main street and a quick cycle over the grand-looking bridge across the river, we turned left onto a minor road, following the Cycle Route no.7 sign – we were going to follow route 7 for most of the day. This quiet single track road soon took us out into the countryside, basically following the River Cree northwards, going in and out of the trees for quite a number of miles. This area is called Wood of Cree and looked like a nice place to go for a walk. Although it looked mainly flat, it actually felt very slightly uphill as we cycled along the deserted road. Eventually we came to a junction and turned right and here the landscape changed as we entered the Glen Trool

Forest. Here the trees are mainly conifers and there’s lots of evidence of forestry operations (ie. trees being chopped down!) and signs warning to watch out for forestry lorries. It was Sunday though so we didn’t see any lorries at all, or even any cars as we had the lovely smooth, narrow road all to ourselves. Soon we reached Glentrool village but instead of turning left into the village, we went right, heading into some even more remote countryside of the Glen Trool Forest.

From this point on, the road starts to climb more noticably uphill, not enough to have to use any low gears but enough so that your legs really do start to complain – especially as it goes on like this for a long long time (10 miles or so I think). Sometimes the road was lined with spruce trees on both sides but sometimes we had great views over to the Galloway Hills on the right as we cycled along, in and out of the trees. This area has the most wild blueberries I’ve ever seen – and they were very tasty! At some point we passed 2 signs: one was warning that from this point on the road is only gritted during daylight hours; the other was warning that we were about to enter Ayrshire!

The warning signs weren’t necessary though as Ayrshire turned out to be perfectly lovely and at this point the road really did start climbing much more steeply as it wound its way quickly up to the high point of the so called Nick of the Balloch climb at around 400m high. We stopped at the top for a blueberry feast before speeding down the north side of the Balloch as fast as we dared. There are crash barriers on the left side to protect you from a very steep drop if you were to lose control on one of the twisting corners, but thankfully we made it down the steep hill safely enough. We passed a large group of cyclists heading up the other way. It looks like it would be a very impressive, but hard, climb from that side so I think I will go back there another day to give it a go.

After a very brief flat bit at the bottom of the Balloch, we immediatly began climbing up the next steep hill of the “Ayrshire Alps”. This hill is known as The Pilot for some unknown reason and it was quite a hard slog up to the top of the single track road but we did spot an ancient stone signpost which told us we were 10 miles from a place called Maybole and 24 miles from Newton Stewart. The descent down the other side of the hill gave us a grand view over the Ayrshire countryside and some wind farms in the distance and we enjoyed speeding down the hill into the valley below. Well, at least I enjoyed it – Dad was unfortunate enough to be stung on the elbow by a wasp whilst travelling at over 30 mph! At the bottom of the hill, the sun finally came out and we turned right onto a rather bumpy single track road for a few easy miles past fields of sheep and cows until we arrived at the village of Straiton where we decided to stop for lunch. It was our usual fare: crisps, oatcakes, salad, apples and (for Dad) cheapo Aldi chocolate.

After lunch we cycled through Straiton (which seemed like a nice little place) and then turned right at the sign pointing to Newton Stewart and we began our long journey home. At first the road was quite flat with 2 lanes, though it wasn’t all that busy. The views of the valley and the hills in the distance were quite nice in the sunshine. After a while the road narrowed and began to climb upwards into the hills. It was long but quite a gradual climb which took us back into the Galloway Forest again. At one point we crossed a bridge over the oddly named River Stinchar and then the road began to climb

ever more steepy until we finally reached the top – the highest point of the day at well over 400m. From there we had a great view over to the Balloch hill we’d cycled over a couple of hours before, as well as the road ahead, disappearing off down the hill in front of us. It looked like a fun and fast descent – and it was! Soon enough we were back onto the same road we had cycled up this morning. In this direction, heading south towards Glen Trool, it was really great fun. It was nearly all slightly downhill and smooth tarmac with hardly any traffic to be seen as we said goodbye to Ayrshire and sped back into Galloway. The fast fun seemed to go on for endless miles and with the sunshine and blue skies replacing this morning’s grey, low cloud, the views of the hills and the forest were much more impressive.

It wasn’t long before we reached the sign welcoming us back to Glentrool village. But again, we avoided the village and turned left and decided to cycle the 4 miles or so right into the heart of the Glen Trool Forest and the stunning hills surrounding the picturesque Loch Trool. The road was fairly flat apart from a couple of short but very steep climbs right at the end, just before we got the end of the tarmac at the parking area for Bruce’s Stone. Bruce’s Stone is a monument that was errected to commemorate Robert the Bruce’s victory at the Battle of Glen Trool in 1307. The stone is just a big boulder with nothing historic about it so is not really worth looking at, despite all the tourists that flock there to get their picture taken. The views of the hills and the loch are grand though.

We then cycled back along the narrow road and this time turned left and finally did go along the road through Glentrool Village and after a mile of two we came to the junction with the A714 road. It would have been a nice easy 5 or 6 mile ride downhill from here to Newton Stewart. But I was still feeling full of energy so after a brief time on the main road we turned right onto the narrowest, and possibly the nicest, road of the day. As usual it was suspiciously uphill but this was made up for by the increadible views behind us back to the hills of the Galloway Forest where we’d been only half an hour before. The

road took us past Loch Ochiltree as we climbed up and around a small grassy hill. From the high point we had a lovely long and straight slightly downhill stretch which took us quickly to the junction with the B7027. Here we turned left onto the smoothest road in the world. It was such a pleasure to cycle on it as it took us through areas of the Galloway Forest that had recently been cut down. It was also mostly downhill and very fast and before long we came to another junction with the A714 once more. We could have been there much quicker if we hadn’t taken our long cut, but we’d have missed out on some of the best views of the day so I was glad we’d gone the long and hilly way. After that we turned right and sped down the hill for a mile or so to Newton Stewart where we stopped at the Co-op to buy ice lollies to try and cool ourselves down! Then it was only a half mile or so back to our accomodation at Nether Barr where we arrived just in time for tea (mushroom risotto) – so that was well timed. It had been a bit of an epic adventure through some beautiful countryside and definitely one of the highlights of our holiday in Dumfries and Galloway.