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Cycling to Portpatrick – The Cycling Scot

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Cycling to Portpatrick – The Cycling Scot

It’s one of Scotland’s most attractive seaside villages. Located in southwest Scotland, its quite easy to get there by taking a train to Stranraer and then cycling  7 miles. The village is a good base for visiting places like Logan Botanic Garden and the Mull of Galloway lighthouse. 

Highlights

  • 7 mile cycle from Stranraer on a quiet road
  • visiting St John’s Castle in Stranraer
  • a dramatic cliff walk to Dunskey castle in Portpatrick
  • relaxing with a drink and a view of Portpatrick’s harbour
  • enjoying a meal in one of Portpatrick’s excellent restaurants

Getting there

Take a look at where Portpatrick is on a map and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a bit out of the way. It’s on the west coast of a peninsula, the Rhins of Galloway, which is closer to Belfast in Northern Ireland than it is to Glasgow.

But to get there all you have to do is jump on a train from Glasgow to Stranraer. That takes around 2.5 hours. Then cycle about 7 miles.

Stranraer

Stranraer station was built to connect with ferries to Northern Ireland, so it is located on a pier. Since 2011 ferries were moved to a terminal near Cairnryan, so the station location now feels odd. There’s a lot of fenced off infrastructure from the closed ferry terminal and it feels quite far from the town centre.

Stranraer station building. The building is wooden and it is under a canopy

Stranraer station

Castle of St John

It’s worth taking a look at Stranraer’s most distinctive building, the castle of St John. It dates from the 1500s and it is a free museum. You can climb its spiral staircase to the top for great views over the town. In the early 1800s it was used as a prison- look for the prisoner’s drawings of ships carved on the cell doors.

Castle of St John. It looks more like a single tower and made of thick done with only a few windows

Castle of St John

A metal gate in a corridor of the castle of St John, Stranraer
A stone spiral staircase inside the castle of St John
Drawn by a prisoner in the 1800s. A picture of a ship carved on a door in the castle of St John

Drawn by a prisoner in the 1800s. A picture of a ship carved on a door in the castle of St John

A view of Stranraer town centre from the top of the castle of St John. There are shops and flats in the foreground with a view of the sea and distant hills in the background

View from the top of the castle of St John

Stranraer to Portpatrick, 7.2 miles

A stone mile marker on a roadside. It's painted white with the lettering in black capitals for London, 415, P.Patrick, 1, Stranraer, 7l

Mile marker on the road between Stranraer to Port Patrick

The Old Military Road is the most direct route from Stranraer to Port Patrick. It gets you there quickly and safely. The cycling was easy with not many cars. After a mile or so its worth looking back for the great view over Stranraer and Loch Ryan. The town really looks grey from here, the main colour of the buildings, but the backdrop of the sea and hills creates some balance.

View over Stranraer. A cluster of grey buildings next to the sea with hills on the horizon

View over Stranraer

The road smelt of ferns, grass and manure. I heard sheep, crows and songbirds. The loudest sound was spinning wind turbines.

At one point I found a group of curious lambs, their ears looking more like those of rabbits.

Lambs on a grassy and rocky hillside

Lambs near Portpatrick

Enjoy a drink at Portpatrick harbour

The picturesque harbour with its pastel coloured houses is the highlight of Port Patrick. It’s everything you dreamed a Scottish seaside village would be. In the evenings there can be a lively atmosphere with plenty of outside seating to enjoy a drink. I had a pint at The Crown Hotel, and it was so pleasant and relaxing to overlook the harbour and feel the gentle sea breeze. 
A view of Portpatrick. Clusters of houses arranged around a harbour

Portpatrick

Eating out in Portpatrick

A dinner plat with a fillet of fish on it, with some tomatoes and a dressing

A dish of sea bream at the Fernhill Hotel in Portpatrick

There’s a lot of choice for eating out in Portpatrick. I stayed at the Fernhill Hotel and had an amazing meal. The starter was a trio of West Coast seafood. This was 3 neatly presented rounds- one with white crab meat, one with prawns marie rose and smoked salmon and potato salad. The main course was sea bream with Isle of Aran mustard and dill dressing. It came with potatoes, beetroot and tomatoes. The flavour combinations of this worked so well. The dessert was a chocolate torte with rum and raisin ice cream.

Walk to Dunskey Castle

Dunskey Castle. It is a ruin with no roof, sitting on the edge of a cliff with the sea in the background

Dunskey castle

This clifftop walk to a ruined castle was my favourite thing about Portpatrick It’s only about half a mile to the castle. It begins with a lot of steps and an uphill path to the clifftop.

A narrow path on a grassy cliffside. It leads towards Portpatrick which is a cluster of buildings next to a harbour

The path from Portpatrick to Dunskey castel

The view over the cluster of buildings and the harbour is great from up here. At one point you are sandwiched between the cliffs and a railway cutting. Until the 1960s there used to be a railway between here and Stranraer and this part of the line is an incredible piece of engineering. 

A railway cutting, a deep gap in the landscape

A cutting from the railway line that used to link Portpatrick with Stranraer

The drop to the sea is steep and waves splashed into the rocky formations whilst seabirds made a racket. My bare legs brushed against thick grass and the route was dotted with wildflowers.

A path alongside a rocky shore leading to a ruined castle

The path to Dunskey Castle

Dunskey Castle, a ruin with no roof and gaping holes where doors and windows would have been

Dunskey Castle

Day trips from Port Patrick

Portpatrick is a good base for the Mull of Galloway lighthouse and Logan botanic gardens. A future blog will cover my visit to these places.

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