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WALK 7

Rhinns of the Kells

Start/Finish	Forrest Lodge (NX 552 863)
Distance	29km (18 miles)
Ascent	1300m (4400ft)
Approx time	9½hrs
Terrain	Forest tracks; a small amount of rough, tussocky ground; hill ridges and small paths
Max altitude	Corserine, 814m
Maps	Landranger 77 (Dalmellington); Explorer 318 (Galloway N)
Parking	Arrive along Forrest Road and go over a stone bridge with 2 ton weight limit to a car park on the left
Variant	Direct to Corserine then following southern half of ridgeline – 17.5km (11 miles) with 950m (3100ft) of ascent (about 6¼hrs)

The Rhinns of the Kells is the Southern Uplands’ finest ridgeline. On the left it drops steep and craggy to the Glenkens; on the right it looks into the rugged Galloway heartland. And each of its four hills has its own character – narrow, stony Carlin’s Cairn; huge, sprawling Corserine; the rocky ridgeline of Millfire; and the rough lump of Meikle Millyea.

The trouble with a line is that its two ends are rather far apart. Walkers with two cars can be clever and get onto the ridge’s northern end from Green Well of Scotland. Otherwise, there’s a bit of guddling about in the plantations to start with. This is the necessary price if Carlin’s Cairn is to be included – perhaps the finest peak of the ridgeline. However, there is a more straightforward route from Forrest Lodge westwards through the trees that gives direct access to Corserine (see ‘Variant’, below).

Tracks at the car park are more complicated than marked on maps. Take the main track north, crossing another stone bridge with 2 ton weight limit, to the gateway to Forrest Lodge; a statue of a piper is ahead. Bear left here on a rougher track (signed for Nether Forrest and Forrest Lodge). This track is not marked on Landranger and is incorrectly marked on Explorer maps. Pass round to the left of the lodge.

After 800 metres roughly northeast, reach a T-junction with a major track. Turn up left for 150 metres to another junction. Keep left, and after 300 metres follow the track round to the right at an open shed.

This wide, smooth timber track runs roughly northeast, then north under the minor crags of Craigmaharb, and then northwest. After a side-track on the left (signed ‘Mykola Lysenko Road’) the main track swings north. Mykola Lysenko was a Ukranian musician. It passes the crumbling shepherd’s house Darnaw in woods to the left, and then bends northwest. There’s a minor side-track on the right, and in another 250 metres the track bends left again. Go on for just 170 metres to turn right down a forest ride just west of north to Polmaddy Burn.

Cross the burn and head to the corner of the open ground around the former Shiel of Castlemaddy bothy. Little used, sometimes abused, and becoming unsafe, the bothy was demolished in 2011. Pass through a broken wall to the masonry cairn commemorating the bothy demolition. A grassed-over track runs west, then uphill beside a wall and stream (it’s blocked by fallen timber in places) to a forest track. Turn right for 300 metres, then go back sharp left. The forest track runs north through a col west of Craigenwallie, then downhill roughly northeast.

After 1km downhill, the track levels and bends right (east). Turn down left, between clear-fell (right) and mature trees soon for felling (left), to Halfmark Burn. Turn briefly downstream to crossbelow the Cleugh of Alraith (small gorge), and turn back upstream on a rough quad-bike track for 300 metres to the head of the cleugh, with a small waterfall.

Turn uphill, over very rough grassland, to gain the moorland crest, where the going is more comfortable. Cross a slight rise at the 350m contour, then head up the face of Cairnsgarroch, spotted with boulders.Approaching the summit, reach a cairn (Shepherd’s Cairn) and wall, with Cairnsgarroch summit cairn just beyond.

Follow the wall, with path alongside, down across a wide col, and quite steeply up Meaul. The wall ends 70 metres northeast of Meaul trig point.

A faint quad-bike path (and a small people-path) runs south along most of the following ridgeline to Meikle Millyea. Leave Meaul roughly southwest, through a long col with a couple of pools, and then go up south, just left of the true crest, onto the spur above Goat Craigs. The well-defined stony ridgeline runs southwest, then south with drops to the left, to the large and ancient cairn on Carlin’s Cairn.

In the years before Bannockburn Robert the Bruce conducted guerrilla warfare through these hills. Legend tells of a night attack at Clatteringshaws, down to the east, where the local farm-wife donated her cattle, with saucepans attached, as an imitation army in the dark. Once he’d become king, the grateful Robert gave her this land, and the cairn commemorates this.

Carlin Cairn’s southern spur, a col, and a rise – all south – lead to the trig point on the plateau of Corserine.The variant route arrives here from the east.

Milldown seen from Corserine, with Loch Dungeon and very distant Criffel

The descent line slants slightly left (south-southeast), and unless Millfire is visible ahead you need a compass (or GPS) line here. At 700m level the ridgeline reforms, running south and then southeast, with plantations just below on the right. Keep close to drops on the left for the small path to the cairn on Millfire. The ridge runs level for 800 metres, then rises; above the col a wall crosses, and now walkers have a guiding wall along the ridgeline. The summit cairn of Milldown is out to the left of the wall, above the steep drop to Loch Dungeon.

On Millfire, looking back to Corserine

Wall and path run down through rugged ground to the small Lochans of Auchniebut for the final rise to Meikle Millyea. Arrive at a trig point and large ancient cairn. Harvey mapping has the true summit (749m) at the cairn 400 metres southwest, and it’s a pleasant plateau wander out and back to visit it (also gaining southward views to Loch Dee).