Hill walk routes to climb in SW Scotland - also coastal paths and National Scenic Areas with maps, pictures and other useful information based on extensive local knowledge
Other Walks Introduction

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This site is concerned mostly with hill walking and I have concentrated on the four main ranges of hills: Scaur Hills - Borders Hills - Lowther Hills - Galloway Hills

However, along the Solway Coast there are three National Scenic Areas that offer some very pleasant walking indeed. These are: Fleet Valley, East Stewartry and Nith Estuary. These links will take you to the introductory pages to each of these sections.
For a overview of the web galleries try Otherwalks Page List.
Walks on the site which are neither on the hills nor in these National Scenic Area are:
St Ninian's Cave to Isle of Whithorn - Portpatrick Round via Killantringan
Mull of Galloway - Around Garlieston - Around Monreith

Besides the above, there is plenty of very pleasant walking elsewhere in the area and the picture on the right shows some of the series of leaflets on walking which you will get for free at any tourist office in the area. Each leaflet describes 7 or 8 walks around a particular town in the region and gives other useful information about the town and it's environs. Most of the walks in these leaflets are not very demanding. There are also several books devoted to walking in the area.

Leaflets from the local towns giving walks in their area

The walks in this "Otherwalks" section were done in a somewhat different spirit from the hill walks. Usually when you are on a big route on the hills all geared up to take whatever the day will throw at you and with a definite route in mind that is quite physically demanding, you are in a dynamic mental mode, which is about mananging navigation and physical effort economically so that you push on and achieve the target you have set yourself.

However in the Scots tongue we have an expression "tae go fur a dawner" - "dawner" being roughly equivalent to dander in English. But in Scots the meaning of the expression is as much about attitude of mind - you go wherever chance takes you or, as a good friend of mine says, "do whatever suggests itself" These walks were done in just that spirit with no big pack full of survival-for-the-day gear and a determination to be always pushing on. They were not much more than morning or afternoon strolls where we really took time to relax and tune in to the spirit of the place - an aboriginal type "walkabout" physically and spiritually in some magic landscape and we usually arranged the walk to find a pub for lunchtime.

I hope the pictures can catch some of this sense of being in a living landscape for you.
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