Creetown, Glenquicken Stone Circle and Ballochanamour Wood

Creetown boasts the largest craft shop in Galloway, but its biggest attraction is the Gem Rock Museum, near the start of the walk. It houses the largest private collection of gemstones, crystals and fossils in Britain. The collection well over 2,000 of the 3,000 known types of mineral. Most spectacular are the giant geodes - hollow shapes formed by gas bubbling through cooling but still malleable rock. These are lined with amethyst crystals. One, aptly named 'Jaws' looks like a jewelled shark's gape.

Most fascinating of all is the crystal cave, in which giant crystals glow under concealed lighting in its niches and crevices. The centrepiece is an apparently dull rock wall that is actually studded with stones and crystals that contain raw minerals. When the house lights go off and ultra violet lights are turned on, the minerals glow and fluoresce in a rainbow of colours.

The main part of the walk is along Slakes Road, a country lane which starts from near the museum and leads up into the hills. This was once a military road, built in the 18th century. The lane runs beside, and then through Ballochanamour Wood to emerge onto bleak moorland surrounded by high hills.

A steady climb takes you to Glenquicken Stone Circle, just off on a lane to the right of the road. The henge of 30 rounded stones in a perfect 50 foot diameter circle is centred on a monolith with a necklace of small stones surrounding its base.

The stone circle is not a particularly dramatic sight, but, perhaps because of the remote location, it has survived apparently more or less intact. Archaeologists have discovered that the stones form various alignments with the rising and setting points of the moon, stars and planets. For this reason, it is considered by some to be one of the most important stone circles in Britain, and was probably used for marking the passage of the seasons and the tides.

The walk returns to Creetown by following the military road back over Billy Diamond's Bridge and to Balloch Bridge before diverting from the road to follow a path through Ballochanamour Wood. Locally known as Balloch Community Woodland, this lovely wood of mixed conifers and native deciduous woods has something for everyone. It is popular with the local community and visitors alike.

The surrounding hills and moorland contain the remains of copper, lead and silver mines. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, this part of Galloway was the second largest producer of lead and copper in Scotland. The ores were shipped out of Creetown from the mouth of Moneypool Burn. Once out of the woods, on the way back down to Creetown, there are views ahead over the village, across the River Cree and Wigtown Sands that form an arm of the Solway Firth.