Walk around Doune Castle, Doune Ponds, Commonty trail
Start point: Castlehill car park, Castlehill Ct, Doune, Stirlingshire. NN 728015
OS Map Landranger 57 / Explorer 366
A gentle easy walk on good paths and quiet roads around Doune Castle and Doune ponds, including the so called Commonty trail.(A Commonty is a piece of land in Scotland shared by several owners.)
Terrain: Tarmac with good trail paths.
Distance: 12 km, duration 4 hrs, total ascent 120 m to max. ht 70 m.
A great day to lead a walk of 17 walkers around the town of Doune. The weather was fair and was glad there was no sign of rain this weekend.
We couldn’t park in Castlehill car park with it being full at the weekend, so parked on the street.
When we were all booted up we headed down the hill slightly and headed left along Castlehill Road with a sign post heading to the castle to the right. The walk round the castle was lovely but somehow I missed a loop and headed back to a gate that took up onto a road heading to the castle.
Towards the castle we headed left of the castle following down with the Ardoch Burn on the left. We came to a sewerage works and took a right down the side of it and headed left with the river Teith on the right. We walked in a kind of rain drop shape route and came round on a track with the Ardoch Burn on the right.
We carried up towards the castle keeping to the right of it and headed along the road to the A820 Ardochbank, then to Main road by turning left. Walking towards the town and crossed over left of the church and walked up on Moray Street past the football pitches.
Coming up to the cycle path on the right Route 765 this link is a cycle street plan of it http://stirling.cyclestreets.net/journey/578063/
This was a good path and very straight and walk for 2km going past a motocross track on the left…This is what its like when there is some action on…
Further on for less than 1 km taking a left at the second bridge and turn right on to a single road. Follow this road for another 3 km going past Doune Moto Parc sign on the left and coming to a T junction with a sign on the right to see Red Kite birds of pray but go left with the old bus shelter across the road. Continue down this road towards a sign on the right pointing to the Commonty trail and follow right to the end nearly 2km onto farm road of Moray Street. Turn right up hill and look for an old view point on the left and you will see a pathway down to the ponds which is in one of the pictures.
Follow the path straight on and you will come to a carved bench with a fox on it, bare left and right towards a sign called Kate’s Corner, follow the path left towards the ponds where you will see picnic benches and another lovely carved bench.
The path is easy and straight forward round the pond where you come back to Kate’s corner and head left back up the wooden path onto Moray Street and head straight down back to the town and car park.