The Astra takes the Three Lochs Forest Drive
A quiet seven-mile forest road, three lochs, and a slow Saturday lap in the Trossachs — the route drawn on our own map.
A one-way road through the trees
The Three Lochs Forest Drive is a seven-mile single-track road that winds through Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, a couple of miles north of Aberfoyle. It runs one way only, so once you’re on it you’re in for the full lap — which is rather the point. There’s no hurrying a road like this: passing places, blind crests and the odd walker mean you take it at the pace of a slow bicycle, and it’s the better for it.
The three lochs
The name is honest. The road threads past three stretches of water, each with its own character: Lochan Reòidhte, a small dark pool near the start; Loch Drunkie, the largest, with a picnic spot down on its shore; and Loch Achray, opening out near the end before the road drops back onto the pass. Between them it’s all spruce and larch, with the odd gap in the trees framing the hills beyond.
Getting on it
The entrance is off the A821, the Duke’s Pass road, about two miles north of Aberfoyle. There’s a £3 charge per vehicle, paid at a machine that takes coins or a card, and the barriers keep sensible hours — in by 4pm, out by 5pm — so it’s a morning or early-afternoon drive rather than an evening one.
Worth the detour
It’s not a fast road and it isn’t trying to be. It’s the kind of drive you take slowly, windows down, for the trees and the water and the quiet — and the Astra, in its Cosmic Gray, looked quite at home parked by the loch.
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