Kings Cave Walk – Arran

Even though the weather was a little wild during our trip to Arran, we still managed a lot of time walking and visiting different areas of the island.  We initially thought the walk to Kings Cave would be too far for our eldest (littlest could get carried on my back), but then decided to go anyway, despite the lack of sleep!

Kings Cave walk begins just north of Blackwaterfoot on the west coast of Arran.  There is sign on the main road pointing to the Forestry Commission car park where you can check out the map of the walk on the board.  It’s a circular walk and we chose to follow the path north, along the edge of the forest and down to the sea.

This section is fairly easy going, with a steep gully down to the pebble shore.  As soon as you reach the shore there is a cave up to the left through the vegetation.

The second cave along provided some entertainment with a sloping rock that the boys spent a while climbing up and down and round the corner was a steady stream of water filtering through the soil and rocks and dripping down into the pool of water below.  I had a lovely refreshing drink from it and helped our 5 year old have some too!

By the time we were finished at the second cave we sat on the rocks and had a bite to eat, waving at a few kayaker’s paddling past.  I do love pebble beaches, they are so much more interesting to dig through than sand!

Onto the next cave, which was a proper cave going deep into the cliff, although a little too slippy for the boys liking.  We had been pretending we were on a bear hunt for our walk and littlest kept asking where the bear was, I think he was imagining it to be hiding in the corner of the cave!!

Kings Cave itself had a fortress like fence and gate at the entrance, I assume it wasn’t always open to visitors.  There are some carvings on the walls of this cave, although we were too busy being bears and scaring the children to check them out properly!

It’s definitely the biggest cave of them all.

Beside this cave there is one hidden smaller cave and a natural arch which the boys enjoyed exploring.  Apologies for the photos, the mixture of light is hard for an amateur photographer to cope with!

Around the corner from Kings Cave are a complex of entrances into the cliff face.  These are huge too and would make a great shelter in the rain!

By this time it was clear that Mr O was a bit tired from his early start to the day, so we headed up the steep path from the coast back toward the forest, not without a few last photos of the stunning coastline!

A little way along the path up the cliff there is a sign pointing you toward the car park we came from and also another back toward Blackwaterfoot village, so with older children you could easily walk along from Blackwaterfoot and back again.

After a surprisingly long walk through the forest, past a good number of Fly Agaric mushroom we found ourselves back at the car again, tired and hungry, but happy with our walk.

It is definitely well worth a visit if you’re on Arran and it will only take up half a day at the most, even with slower walkers.  We spent the rest of the day up at Lochranza visiting the castle there and having a bite to eat at the distillery cafe.

Have you visited Arran?  Where would you recommend to visit?

J x