Overview

Distance: 7km
Time: 2 - 3 hrs (depending on route and fitness)
Parking:
Car Park A: Belfast Castle & Cavehill Trail Car Park
Car Park B: Belfast Castle Car Park
Car Park C: Lower Belfast Caslte Car Park
Trail difficulty: Easy
This route follows forest trails and well defined paths throughout the park and the Belfast Hills. This route is almost entirely within the confines of the park, with only 100 - 200 metres looping through a residential estate.
Read the full breakdown of trail grading here.
Trail quality: 5/5
This trail is well built and easy to follow, with no major road walking.
Views: Imagined at a 4/5
As you’ll see below, I did not have the weather on my side for this trail. However, photos that I’ve seen of this area in good weather look incredible, and the snippets of views I did see where lovely. The forest was also gorgeous.
Buggy/Wheelchair friendly: Some sections
While the specific loop through Cave Hill that I took was not buggy or wheelchair friendly, there are certainly some trails in the park area that are accessible.
Dogs allowed: Yes, on a lead. Be aware of livestock signage in specific areas.

Learn more about the trail, such as opening hours, here.

My phone is already in my hands when the alarm goes off, and I pull the duvet higher as I try and decide if I’m going to hike this morning. It’s the start of November, and I’m in Belfast for one of my best friend’s birthday. The event isn’t for another 14 hours, and with Carl back in Roscommon fighting off a horrible flu, I’ve unexpectedly found myself on a solo city break that I’d planned for the two of us.

The pre-dawn light is starting to lighten the sky as I drive over to Belfast Castle, but the clouds are heavy above me. I’m still holding out hope that I might get some sunrise views over the city, and then the rain starts to patter on the windscreen. As I pull into the car park, a proper rain shower hits that I wait out in the car. There’s no chance of me making it to the top in time for sunrise now, but I’m still excited for the hike. When my feet finally hit the trail it’s 7:54 am.

There are three marked trails around Cave Hill Country Park, with the primary trailhead at the second carpark on the main drive up to Belfast Castle (from Innisfayle Park). That misty morning I set off to walk the longest option, the Cavehill Trail, but there is also the Estate Trail (4km through the woodland areas), and the Castle Trail (1.3km through the gardens of Belfast Castle).

Cave Hill Park is named for the five caves found here on the cliffs of the Belfast Hills. For a place so accessible from the city, it feels wilder than I expected, with a wide variety of walks, play spaces, and history.

The first of kilometre is along forest trails with well waymarked junctions. Then I hit the steep section of trail, and realise that I might not be as recovered from my own bout of the flu as I thought. Some gasping and burning lungs later, I make my way out of forest and into the clouds.

This uphill section is about 2km, and quite steep. While I wouldn’t have minded seeing the incredible views that the area is known for, the quite eeriness that the low-lying clouds offer has its own magic.

The famous cliffs loom out of the gloom, briefly becoming visible for moments before shrouding over once more. The majority of the climbing is done once you pass through the gate marked with an arrow for the Belfast hills. The trail up here is a wide gravel track, and I meet a few runners who look confused at the camera tripod I’m carrying over my shoulder - there are clearly no views to be seen up here today.

I pass the info board for McArt's Fort, and follow the trail back westwards around the south side of the hill, slowly descending as I go. The quality of this trail is very high - if I’m to nit-pick, the most south-westerly section of the trail is the least inspiring. If you’d like to shorten the route ever so slightly, and cut off the 200m through a housing estate, at around 3.5km I would take the left towards the limestone quarry (down the stone steps), and follow that trail the whole way back to the trail head.

Taking the route that I did, I skirted through Ballyaghagan Nature Reserve before connecting onto Upper Cavehill Rd for a couple hundred metres through a housing estate. Back into the forest, I have another few hundred metres of beautiful deciduous leaf crunching before I reach the road up to Belfast Caste. The last short stint is to follow this road back up to the trail head.

Overall I absolutely loved this trail, and the area. There are so many route options and so much space to explore. It really felt well-managed for the volume of people I’m sure descend on this place regularly.

Follow the route on Strava, or download the GPX here.
Note that the GPX should only ever be used as a guide, and does not imply right of way.