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Continue up the road beyond the lower car park for 10 metres, then take a small informal path through woods on its right. After 150 metres this arrives at Bruce’s Stone, perched high above Loch Trool.

Bruce’s Stone is a granite erratic – a smaller but similar granite lump is nearby alongside the arrival path. The bedrock below the monument is greywacke sandstone, darker than the granite, here with the knobbly ‘hornfelsed’ texture – it has been cooked by the heat of the granite intrusion, whose edge is only a few hundred metres away. So the glacier has not had to bring the Bruce’s boulder very far. However, some Galloway granite is found hundreds of miles away to the south and southeast.

Turn left at the Bruce’s Stone on a wide, well-made path past two benches to the upper car park at the end of the road.

At the top end of this upper car park a wide path sets off uphill (northeast), with a large signboard announcing it as the Merrick Trail. The path is rugged, with peat and boulders – it gets much better higher up. In 200 metres it arrives above the wooded slot of the Buchan Burn, with waterfalls heard below.