Top five Ayrshire walking paths to enjoy as lockdown eases Ayrshire boasts some amazing scenery – and one of the finest coastal paths in the UK. Here’s our quick guide to five of the top stretches of this amazing trail – and what you can expect to discover.
Troon to Irvine With brilliant views and sandy beaches in Irvine you can visit Seagate Castle, the Scottish Maritime Museum and Glasgow Vennel, former home of Burns. The route is six miles, taking three hours. A longer detour route also takes in the Smugglers Trail and the famed Dundonald Castle, birthplace of the Stuart Dynasty of Scotland’s kings and queens… who later became the UK’s monarchs too.
The otherworldly edge of Britain, home to white beaches, Viking legends and a curious bus stop
The UK’s most northerly inhabited isle has a violent past, and a bold future
One of the cutest residents of Unst
Credit: Getty
If the idea that rockets are about to hurtle into space from a remote Shetland isle sounds surreal, you’ve clearly not been to Unst. The UK’s most northerly inhabited isle is already otherworldly – we’re talking a bus stop that snares art awards, an old MOD base reborn as a resort with a (rather good) gin distillery, and a torrid history riven between Vikings and Picts, immortalised by a castle built by a bastard. Then there is Robert Louis Stevenson’s real life Treasure Island and a foe he could scarcely have dreamt up – the dreaded ‘bonxie’. These hulking raptors knock unsuspecting walkers clean off their feet; space rockets beware.