Blackwaterfoot - Arran

About trip

• Circular walk: 6.63 miles
• what3words address for parking: 
• ///reporter.giants.squeezed

We started this from the car park beside the beach and walked along the shore, walking the route clockwise. There is another car park for the King’s Cave at ///serve.grafted.page if you wanted a shorter walk at the woodland; the paths are obvious and easy to follow.

The route from the beach passes below the cliff face of the Doon and picks its way through the boulder field. The path is reasonably easy to follow between the high water mark and the bottom of the cliff, which is spectacular. Past the boulders you eventually come to a notice directing you to a fossilized dinosaur footprint; we took a look – why wouldn’t you?

Further on the King’s Cave is obvious amongst the other caves at the bottom of the cliff by virtue of the railings at the entrance.

In 1306, Robert Bruce suffered two major defeats in his attempt to claim the Scottish throne and oust the English from Scotland. Pursued by his enemies and on the run, Bruce sought refuge in a cave. There he watched a spider try and fail to make a web.

Again and again, the spider tried and failed to attach its thread, but it didn’t give up, and after numerous attempts, finally succeeded.

Inspired by the spider’s refusal to give up, Bruce vowed to try again to take the throne. After years of struggle, his efforts led at last to success as he defeated the English and their allies at Bannockburn.

According to one tradition, it was in this sandstone cave that the spider inspired Bruce.

Whether you believe that or not the cave is interesting and is supposed to contain, for example, early Christian carvings. Take a torch.

We continued our walk past the caves and the path climbs up and skirts the woodland, eventually passing through the car park and then looping through the woods and back to the coast. Rather than negotiate the boulder field again on our return we forked left along an obvious path to the top of the Doon and onwards, eventually coming down into Blackwaterfoot through the golf course (watch out for flying golf balls!)

This was a really enjoyable walk. Great scenery, good variety and lots of interesting birds along the foreshore.