Walk 58 – Cliff Walk at Culzean- 2.7 miles

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A short scenic walk through lovely woodland inside Culzean Castle & Country Park. Admire the 18th century castle and it's gardens, look out for wildlife around the swan pond and take in the panormic vistas of Ailsa Craig and Isle of Arran from the clifftop. The kids will love the Adventure Cove!

  Car parking available within Culzean Castle Country Park KA19 8LE – entrance charges apply if you are not a National Trust for Scotland Member. Suggest parking in the car park just off Silver Avenue, in front of the Deer Park.


WALK REPORT: 22nd May 2016

I thought this was going to be a buggy friendly walk…. oh how wrong I was. I have been to Culzean so many times and walked what I would have called the ‘cliff walk’ but this was definitely not buggy friendly, nor was it the cliff walk I remembered! It was beautiful, but hard work! Thomas was ordered to walk for most of it as I just couldn’t push with his weight in the buggy as well. Mind you, I think he is becoming used to that happening on walks with Mum and Gran!!

Culzean is such a beautiful castle and I have many childhood memories of walks around it’s vast estate. Normally we would park the car in Maidens and walk along the shore to Culzean but since having the kids we have been inclined to use the visitor car parks within the country park to make for shorter walks. It is always busy with tourists and local people out for a wander, and today was no different. At this time of year the neatly landscaped gardens are vibrant with colour  which adds to it’s beauty. We also found plenty of flowers inside the woods and along the banks of the swan pond such as bluebells and a yellow daisy-like flower called leopard’s bane.

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Gateway to the castle

I loved this thistle emblem found on the cannons beside the castle. They sit on an elevated platform overlooking the Firth of Clyde so on a clear day the views from this vantage point are spectacular. The kids love to climb on the cannons and pretend they are firing them out to sea 🙂

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Thistle emblem on the side of the canons

The swan pond was full of life today and we saw water lillies as well as a grey heron, and of course the resident swans! There was a man throwing tiny crumbs of bread into the pond and we stood for a while watching as the fish swam up to nibble it. Quite a sight!

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Culzean swan pond
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Grey heron

Once on top of the cliffs it becomes a woodland walk with a variety of path surfaces. This is where we ran into problems with the buggy because some paths had a lot of tree roots and were quite narrow and hilly with lots of tight twists and turns. We came to a gap in the trees at one point and were treated to a beautiful panoramic view over the coastline. There is a well-positioned bench at this point which serves both as a place to rest and to admire the view for a while.

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Woodland path on the cliff walk
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View across the Clyde to Ailsa Craig
“Poor” Thomas ordered to walk as the terrain becomes too tricky for him in the buggy

If you have kids in tow, then no walk at Culzean is complete without a visit to the Adventure Cove and my little man loved it there. My other advice is to take a picnic if the weather is good – there are lots of lovely spots around the country park to sit at to enjoy it.

thomas

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