Portpatrick was the packet port for Ireland — the shortest crossing, and for centuries the way Scotland and Ulster talked to each other. The Irish Sea beat it in the end: the harbour proved impossible to protect from westerly gales, the trade moved to Stranraer in the 1860s, and Portpatrick settled into being a holiday village instead. It has been a very good one ever since. A crescent of painted houses wraps round a small harbour, hotels and pubs line the front, and cliffs rise on either side.
The Southern Upland Way starts here
Britain's first official coast-to-coast long-distance path begins at Portpatrick harbour and runs 212 miles east to Cockburnspath on the North Sea. There is a signpost, an information board, toilets and — unusually for the start of a serious walk — a children's playground. The concrete steps up to the clifftop have the route's story and the local geology inscribed on the risers. Even if you are walking none of it, the first half-mile along the cliffs is worth doing.
The walk to Dunskey Castle
The best short walk in the Rhins. From the car park at the south end of the seafront, steps climb to the clifftop and a path runs south, over a bridge above a deep inlet, along a narrow strip between the cliffs and the cutting of the old Stranraer railway, to the ruin of Dunskey Castle — a mid-16th-century tower on a rocky promontory, derelict since the 1700s and dramatically sited above the sea. Roughly two miles there and back, or a circuit returning through the railway cutting. There are steep steps at the start and it can be muddy; keep well back from the edges, and treat the ruin itself as unsafe to enter.
Other things to do
- Portpatrick Dunskey golf course above the village — a clifftop 18 and a 9-hole course, and one of the most enjoyable views in Scottish golf.
- Dunskey Gardens, just outside the village — a walled garden, woodland walks and a hedge maze modelled on the one at Hampton Court.
- The harbour front — putting green, bowling green and tennis court, plus sea-angling charters.
- The lifeboat station, and the memorial to the Princess Victoria, the Stranraer–Larne ferry lost with heavy loss of life in the storm of January 1953 — a disaster still keenly felt on both sides of the North Channel.
- The pubs and hotels on the front do the seafood, and this is the obvious lunch stop on any Rhins day.
Getting there
About 39 miles and 55 minutes from Girvan via Stranraer, seven miles east. Buses connect the two, so it is reachable by train to Stranraer and bus on. Park at the southern end of the seafront for the cliff walk. It works best as part of a Rhins day trip taking in Logan Botanic Garden and the Mull of Galloway.
