Stinchar Falls Walk

Where: Stinchar Falls, Ayrshire
When: May 2014
Who: I Parker
Why: heavy rain the night before so good for viewing waterfalls
Weather: sunny spells
Height: ?
Distance: about 3 miles out to the falls, and 3miles back

The Trail to the Falls was closed in Feb 2016 due to a landslide. Will try and give an update when the trail is open again.

The car park for the walk to the Stinchar Falls is situated 21 miles southeast of Ayr, next to the B741 road that runs between the Villages of Straiton and Newton Stewart, at the Stinchar Bridge.

The Stinchar Bridge, and large Car Park, just in to the left on the image below, are situated 7 miles south of the scenic village of Straiton, next to the B741 hill road.

There are also a couple of hill and mountain hiking trails from this car park.

Road Map

The image below is from the entrance to the large car park looking. at the Stinchar Bridge. The Stinchar Falls trail is where the white lines are on the image, leading out and round to the right.

I thought the falls were only about 1 mile out, but soon found they are about 3 miles out.

The image below is from where the path turns into a red forest road..

The image below is where the red forest road meets a main forest road. The green sign is pointing towards the falls.

The image below is from about 1 mile along the main forest road. This sign is pointing to a winding trail down through woodland towards the falls..

The image below is from the bottom of the winding woodland path, where another sign points to the falls along an old forest road. It is about 1 mile from here to the falls, going downhill in between hills..

The image below is from the end of the old forest road. The sign here is stating the trail continues from here to the falls as a narrow footpath, about 200 yards from here.

Below is an image from the narrow trail as it reaches the Stinchar Falls viewing platform.

The image below is from the viewing platform looking up river. The River stinchar is really only a burn from the Stinchar Bridge to just above this point. It is hear it starts to look more like a river.

The view below is looking down from the viewing platform to the Stinchar Falls.

There had been thunder, lightning and rain storms through the night, so there was plenty of water and noise to be seen and heard from here, as all that water was being forced down this narrow channel.

The image below is from the bottom side of the Stinchar Falls. Had to wait a while for the sun, so decided to make my way over for this image.

The route from the platform to here is extremely dangerous, through fallen trees, crossing burns and along the top of cliffs covered in slippy moss, so is not recommended.

Large Image.

This was a nice walk that was fairly level most of the way, just two short sections with a bit of an incline. The walking surface is mainly loose stone, so stout footwear is advised.

Heading back to the car park, just follow the signs back.