09 Half way along the route you will find a sign leading to this recently erected pentagonal shaped hide/shelter (finished 2005). It is an interesting structure both inside and out. It is pentagonal in shape and the door is coffin-shaped.

At this point you can take a longer route to Ward Law than the one covered in this web galley.

A path goes onto the merse just to the left of the hide as you arrive at the door. If you take this path over a stile and then turn immediately left into the tall grasses instead of going onto the merse you can pick up a way-marked path which will take you eventually all the way to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT).

Keep heading along the path until you come to a small sign which says “Bird Sanctuary” on the route straight ahead and you should therefore not go that way. However there is a broad vehicle track heading left (inland) at this point and you can see a bird hide close by on the track. Head in that direction. From here the path now heads along newly installed boardwalks (2012) and along the sides of fields and it can be quite confusing at times where to go, but if you look for and go through all the small new gates you will soon find yourself at Eastpark Farm and WWT. There is a tearoom there which is accessible without necessarily paying to go into the WWT itself.

From WWT you take the tarmac access road that goes to it and follow this all the way up to the main road. Cross straight across this main road and take the farm track up the hill to Ward Law. The route is once again way-marked. Further up the hill the route leaves the farm track and follows a path (to the left) through trees to the top of Ward Law.

The first picture below shows a view back towards the hide in Castle Wood with Criffel beyond as seen from the path that goes from the pentangle hide to WWT. This path runs along the top of a raised banking and is quite easy to walk.

The second picture below shows a view of Ward Law hill as you approach it along the access road to WWT. The trees on top of the hill look a bit like a caterpillar crawing over the hill and this caterpillar shape makes the hill easy to recognise from all around. See for example the view from Mabie Forest across the Nith estuary (third picture from the top down on that page).

From Ward Law you would return past Caerlaverock Castle as shown later in the present web gallery.