(S/E) From the front door of The Royal Ship, walk past the Visitor Centre to Eldon Square.
Turn left then immediately right into Meyrick St. Pass a chapel on the right and another on the left, and follow the road right to its junction with Springfield St. Follow a narrow lane ahead (Heol Feurig) that climbs steeply past two turnings on the right.
(1) At the top of the road, turn left into a walled footpath. At a bench, turn right to Y Bwthyn. Turn left and follow a walled bridleway uphill.
At a gate and stile, turn right and continue along the winding bridleway as it climbs, before levelling off to a gate into open country. Bear right past a low crag and then left and right around another, to meet a wooded stream, which you follow to a lane.
(2) Cross and continue parallel to the stream (staying to the right of the trees on a faint path a little way from the stream). Cross a small side-stream and then continue along the main stream.
Bear left to cross at a ford and follow the track on the other side; go through a gap in the wall on your left and turn right. Follow the bottom edge of the wood through a series of fields and past a pair of ruinous barns.
(3) Turn right at a track between two further barns, then go straight on along the stream. Turn left at a gate and footbridge and cross the bottom of the field to a ladder stile. Join a track then, after fording a small stream, leave the track to pass behind an old watermill.
Level with the house at Coed Croes, turn right past a rocky outcrop. Keep left of a ruined round building and follow a vague path up the valley. Beyond a telegraph pole, ford the stream and bear right across a rushy field towards a farmhouse.
(4) Pass between the house (left) and adjacent barns (right) then swing left behind the garden. A waymark post leads to a path running within the top of a wood and then back out into open fields.
Turn left to a step-stile, beyond which pick your way across an overgrown field to a metal gate in the far corner. The formal right of way passes over a ladder stile and in front of the house, but a more discreet alternative leads around the back of the house to join the entrance drive beyond it.
Follow the drive alongside the Afon Arran until you reach a footbridge. Cross the stream and pass in front of a house on your right to a gate out to a lane.
(5) Turn left past a cottage, then right onto a signposted public footpath. The path, overgrown in places, heads through mixed woodland, at one point passing a ruined building, before meeting a metalled road.
Turn right and follow the road uphill to Dref Gerrig. Walk between the farm buildings to a wooden stile. Turn right below the farmhouse, then bear left through bracken to a stone step-stile in the wall. Turn left and follow the wall to a gap, beyond which bear right to Pen-yr-Alt.
(6) Beyond a gateway, turn left and pass in front of the cottage to a track beyond. Turn left over a ladder-stile. Follow a faint path through bracken into trees, descending to the bottom of the wood overlooking a farm, where you turn left.
Descend past two small gates, the second with a ladder stile, to emerge opposite a gate at Trefeilia. Go through the gate, past the houses, and follow the drive beyond to a cattle grid and then alongside a wood to a road.
(7) Turn left and, ignoring a path by the entrance to Fron Gogh, take the next path on the right. Descend to cross the Arran once more at a footbridge, then follow the ascending path before dropping down again to stepping stones over a smaller stream. The path continues through conifers and is joined by another from the left before curving right and down to the road at Pandy.
(8) Follow the path opposite and cross the Arran again by a former watermill. Bear left and take the lower path, above a weir, which climbs high above the river. As you enter open grassland, take the lower (left-hand) path at a fork, which leads to a gate by a Coed Aberneint noticeboard.
Turn left down the lane and keep left past the community garden. Turn left along a metalled path to a footbridge. Turn right at the next road and then right again, and walk back down Meyrick St into Dolgellau to reach The Royal Ship. (S/E)
