Follow the Galloway Kite Trail through New Galloway and Crossmichael, watching for red kites over Loch Ken

Pick out a red kite by its wingspan of 175–195cm and the forked tail that twists as the bird turns

Walk or cycle the Loch Ken shore and watch for kites over the water

Red kites have been brought back to Galloway, and the Galloway Kite Trail runs through the villages round Loch Ken, among them New Galloway and Crossmichael, past the farms and forestry where they now breed; they can be seen at all times of the year. Loch Ken is 9 miles long, and its marshes with the River Dee's are a Ramsar wetland.

The Galloway Kite Trail: Red Kites Over Loch Ken

Ring the bell and take the boat to Threave Castle

Go inside the tower as far as the Great Hall, reopened in August 2026 while conservation work continues

Walk the Threave garden and the walled garden

Look for ospreys and wildfowl on the Dee marshes

Archibald the Grim built Threave on an island in the Dee in the 1370s, and the Black Douglases held it, for a time under Princess Margaret, daughter of Robert III, until James II overthrew them and took the castle in 1455. You reach it by ringing a bell for the boatman. The Threave estate nearby has a garden run as the National Trust for Scotland's school of gardening and an osprey nest watched from a viewing platform between March and September.

Threave: The Black Douglas Tower on Its Island

Stargaze in Galloway Forest Park, which in November 2009 became the first area in the UK designated a Dark Sky Park, 774 square kilometres of forest and hill

Climb the Merrick (843m), the highest hill in the Southern Uplands

Look for the wild goats at the Wild Goat Park on the Queen's Way (A712) between Newton Stewart and New Galloway

Walk to Bruce's Stone above Loch Trool, marking Robert the Bruce's 1307 victory

In November 2009 Galloway Forest Park became the first area in the UK designated a Dark Sky Park. Under those skies the Merrick rises to 843m, the highest hill in the Southern Uplands, wild goats graze beside the Queen's Way and Bruce's Stone above Loch Trool marks Robert the Bruce's victory of 1307.

Galloway Forest Park: The UK's First Dark Sky Park

Ride the graded trails from the Kirroughtree visitor centre

Look for red squirrels in the forest around the centre

Kirroughtree, in the forest above Newton Stewart, is one of the seven 7stanes mountain-bike centres in southern Scotland, with graded trails through a forest that holds red squirrels, red deer and ospreys and looks out towards the Irish Sea.

Kirroughtree: Granite Singletrack Above the Cree

Walk the full circuit of the curtain wall and count its sides — eleven of them, a footprint cut to fit an island that is no longer there

Look out across the water and work out what happened here: the loch was raised in the 1930s for a hydro-electric scheme, the island went under, and the walls were taken down and rebuilt on this shore

Put the sieges to the stone you are standing in. The castle was held by the English in the Wars of Independence until the forces of Robert I took it back, besieged again in 1335, and attacked in 1446 by William Douglas, eighth Earl of Douglas

Walk down to the waterline below the walls and look along the length of Loch Doon, then back up at the castle — the two views the island site would have had, now split between the shore and the water

Loch Doon Castle was built in the late 13th century on an island in the loch, inside an eleven-sided curtain wall shaped to the rock it stood on. In the 1930s the loch was raised for a hydro-electric scheme, so the castle was dismantled and rebuilt on the shore, where it stands today as a scheduled monument. It had a hard history before that: held by the English in the Wars of Independence until Robert I’s forces recovered it, besieged in 1335, and attacked again in 1446 by the eighth Earl of Douglas.

Loch Doon Castle: The Fortress That Was Moved

Ride the granite Slab, the optional black-graded section of the Hardrock Trail (expert riders only)

Find the 7stanes stone sculpture in the forest

Dalbeattie is one of the seven 7stanes mountain-bike centres across southern Scotland, and the one built on granite: the Hardrock trail runs over bare rock slabs, and the Slab itself is a steep sheet of bare granite that riders roll down. Each of the seven centres has a stone sculpture by Gordon Young, and Dalbeattie's stands in the forest.

Dalbeattie 7stanes: The Slab and the Hardrock Trail

Visit the Kirkcudbright Galleries, in the former town hall, opened on 12 July 2018 in 'the Artists' Town' where the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists settled from the 1880s

Tour Broughton House, where the painter E. A. Hornel lived from 1901 until his death in 1933

See MacLellan's Castle, the roofless tower house of 1582 in the middle of the town

Walk the harbour and the colour-washed streets the painters came for

Kirkcudbright drew painters from the 1880s — E. A. Hornel of the Glasgow Boys lived at Broughton House on the High Street from 1901 until his death in 1933, and Jessie M. King and others followed. Kirkcudbright Galleries opened in the old town hall in July 2018 to show the town's art collection, and MacLellan's Castle of 1582 stands roofless in the middle of the town.

Kirkcudbright: The Artists' Town

Visit Caerlaverock Castle, the only triangular castle in the UK, built in the 1270s by the Maxwells, besieged by Edward I in 1300 and taken by Covenanters in 1640 after a 13-week siege

See the Nithsdale Lodging of 1634 inside the castle walls

Walk round the moat and the earthwork ramparts

Watch barnacle geese on the Caerlaverock merse in winter

See the Ruthwell Cross, the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon cross in Ruthwell church, with runic lines close to The Dream of the Rood

Caerlaverock was built in the 1270s by the Maxwells on a triangular plan with a twin-towered gatehouse at the apex and a moat around it — the only castle of that shape in Britain. Edward I besieged it in 1300, and inside the walls the Nithsdale Lodging of 1634 is a Renaissance house set in a medieval shell. The merse below holds barnacle geese all winter. Eight kilometres east, Ruthwell church keeps the Ruthwell Cross, probably carved in the 8th century when this was Northumbria: smashed by Presbyterians in 1642 and put back together in 1823, it carries runic lines, possibly added later, close to the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood.

Caerlaverock: The Only Triangular Castle in Britain

Tour Sweetheart Abbey, the Cistercian abbey founded in 1273 by Dervorguilla of Galloway in memory of her husband John de Balliol, whose embalmed heart she kept in an ivory and silver casket

Visit the New Abbey Corn Mill in the village

Climb Criffel (570m) for the view across the Solway

Dervorguilla of Galloway founded the Cistercian abbey at New Abbey in 1273 in memory of her husband John de Balliol, whose embalmed heart she kept with her in an ivory and silver casket; it was buried with her, and she named the abbey Dulce Cor — Sweet Heart. The village also keeps a working corn mill, and Criffel, 570m, rises behind it with a view across the Solway.