Birnie and Gaddon Lochs – A Nature Walk and a Farm Lunch
1¾ miles · 1 hour
£2 parking · dogs welcome
Birnie and Gaddon Lochs, by Collessie in Fife, began as sand and gravel pits and are now a Local Nature Reserve.
An easy, surfaced path goes round the pair of them, with a view to the Lomond Hills on the way. Then lunch is at Pillars of Hercules, an organic farm with a vegetarian café just outside Falkland.
Where it starts
Start at the Fife Coast and Countryside Trust's car park off the B937 just south of Collessie: free for under two hours, £2 for the day by honesty box; disabled parking free.
Is it for me?
Tap who is coming, or the day you have, for the answer on this walk.
Before you go
On the path
About an hour for the loop of both lochs.
The walk
Park in the Fife Coast and Countryside Trust's car park off the B937, just south of Collessie: free for under two hours, £2 for the day by honesty box. Both lochs, sand and gravel quarries in the 1980s and 1990s, are now a Local Nature Reserve of open water surrounded by sparse woodland. A surfaced, almost flat path goes round each loch, with a link between them; the loop of the two is about 1.8 miles (2.9 km).
Benches on a rise above Gaddon Loch look over the water to the twin tops of the Lomond Hills. Water birds keep to the reeds near the shore, so bring binoculars, and there's a chance of red squirrels, otters and bats. Each loch has a bird hide, kept locked: ring the Trust on 01592 656080, preferably in office hours, for a key.
Keep dogs on short leads, and keep people and dogs out of the water at Birnie Loch.
If it rains
On a wet day, the café is under cover.
Afterwards
15 min by car
Pillars of Hercules
Lunch
Pillars of Hercules is an organic farm with a vegetarian café, just outside Falkland, 15 minutes' drive south-west of the lochs. Food comes straight from the counter: soups, curries, pasties, baked potatoes and pressed sandwiches with salads, plus scones and cakes, with plenty for vegans. There's no booking, and every table is first come. A woodstove warms the café in winter, and there's more seating out in the orchard and under cover on the decking, a favourite with dog walkers.
After the walk
Coffee and cake, something to do with the rest of the day, and dinner, nearest the end of the walk first.
With the rest of the day
9 min by roadThings to doLindores Abbey DistilleryA distillery beside the ruins of Lindores Abbey near Newburgh, where a monk made aqua vitae in 1494, in the earliest written record of Scotch whisky.
10 min by roadThings to doNewburgh BearCarefully cut into the grass of Park Hill, the Newburgh Bear was designed in the 1980s, standing over the nearby town of Newburgh.
10 min by roadThings to doFalkland PalaceA Renaissance royal palace in the village of Falkland, loved by Mary Queen of Scots, with a great garden and the oldest surviving real tennis court.
12 min by roadThings to doThe Bunnet StaneA strange mushroom of sandstone on the slopes of West Lomond in Fife, a flat rock cap balanced on a thin stalk, with a small cave cut beneath it.
13 min by roadThings to doMaspie DenA wooded glen above Falkland, laid out as a Victorian showpiece of the Falkland Estate, with bridges, a tunnel and a path that passes behind a waterfall.
14 min by roadThings to doAbernethy Round TowerOne of only two Irish-style round towers in Scotland, about 22 metres high, standing in Abernethy's churchyard since around 1100, with a Pictish stone at its foot.For dinner
The Hide, Lindores, 5 minutes by road. A private barbecue hut on top of Lindores Hill, above Newburgh, hired by one group at a time for a lunch cooked over fire, with views over the Tay.
The Stag, Falkland in Falkland, 12 minutes by road. A cafe, bar and restaurant in Falkland's old village pub, reopened by a group of neighbours and cooking with the most local produce they can find.
Pillars of Hercules in Falkland, 12 minutes by road. An organic farm near Falkland, growing since 1983, with a farm shop, a vegetarian cafe, a campsite and a bothy in the woods.
Places to stay near the walk
Our places to stay nearest the start, by road.
An advert · Newburgh
The Glasshouse
A glass-fronted longhouse on a farm near Newburgh for four, and two more on a sofa bed, with a hot tub, a sunken trampoline and room for dogs.
Sleeps 6 · 5 minutes by road
See The Glasshouse
More walks near here
Within a short drive of the start.
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