This
walk of about five miles and 3 hours duration around the Duke's Trail, a
delightful route within the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park in Aberfoyle.
It passes over the Duke's Road which was originally built by
the Duke of Montrose around 1810 to improve access to his estate and
later upgraded to accommodate the Victorian tourists drawn
to the area before being opened to the public in 1931 when the Forestry
Commission acquired the land.
The walk starts from the Scottishwool Centre Car Park in Aberfoyle and
after passing the Information Centre turns left into the main street.
Take care crossing, then continue left to the end of the shops to take
a right turn onto the winding uphill A821 Duke's Road. Initially, the
walk goes a relatively short distance uphill, first
turning right then left as it passes Aberfoyle Bowling Club. Directly
opposite the cycle sign it leaves the road on the right and climbs a
set of slate steps onto a forest path signed to David Marshall Lodge.
There are numerous paths in the forest with coloured markerposts. The
path for this walk follows initially a green marker as it bends round (
ignore the green marker to the right for the oak coppice trail ) to
meet the cycle track NCN 7. It turns right and continues along the
tarred cycle track, takes the
first path on the left with a white, green, blue red marker, turns right
at the deer sculptures and immediately after crossing the boardwalk
turns sharp
left uphill for the single blue marker of the Duke's Trail.
On this section look out for the Go-Ape participants as they travel
along the overhead zipwires. It turns right just after the seat and
follows uphill to the stream on the right to the Duke's Road. Take care
crossing the
road and follow the blue marker on the narrow path uphill on the other
side.
The path then loops round the hillside in among the purple heather,
drops down to cross over a wooden bridge and then back over the Duke's
Road to enter the forest track on the blue marker. This is the turning
point of the walk and looking back across the road the narrow path
previously taken is not too clear while the visible path is the old
wagon ways
track used for transporting stone and slate.
The forest tmck gradually descends to the cross track junction.
Straight across leads to Lime Craig another lovely trail on the single
red marker while this walk turns right to follow the red/blue marker
passing the waterfall viewpoint on the righth and enter the forest
adventure area for the G0-Ape participants - a fascinating place to
pause and watch.
The walk turns right at the next junction and at the bottom of the hill
takes the detour path on the left to the wildlife hide where
there is the chance of spotting red squirrels at their feed boxes.
Afler crossing the bridge, another short detour worth taking, is to the
right for the spectacular Little Fawn Waterfall particularly after a
rainy spell. The walk returns to the bridge and continues ahead on the
(w) (g) (b) marker along the side of the stream then takes the next
junction on the right onto the cycle track with the single (g) marker.
lt passes
by the (g) marker on the left at the direction post and exits the
forest onto the Duke's Road from the cycle track to retrace the steps
back to the car
park.
