We saw the signs for Bracklinn Falls while visiting the small town of Callendar on our last trip to Scotland in 2018. The weather wasn’t particularly great so we didn’t take the time to go and explore the area.
On this trip, we had a little more time and after a quick search on the internet told us that the walk to the falls was only around a mile from the nearest car park which sounded good as our older pooch isn’t really able to walk that far these days.
If you are planning a trip to Bracklinn Falls, it’s worth bearing in mind that the closer car park is fairly small and only holds around a dozen cars. Parking can be a bit of an adventure here so it’s probably best to use the large car park that is located a little further down the hill. Trust me on this, it will make the experience much less stressful!
The walk to the falls is an easy stroll along a well maintained and fairly flat path. The last few metres is a little steeper as it winds down to the river but is also really well maintained, there are also a couple of paths to take down, one of which takes a more gentle wind down to the river and should be ok for people using wheelchairs.
The walk from the car park to the falls took us around twenty minutes via the most direct route, although there are several walks that pass by the falls of varying distances if you fancy a longer hike. I did underestimate just how busy the are would be. We arrived just after lunchtime and there were a lot of people around, both on the bridge over the falls and walking around on the river banks above the falls. Unless you’re very adept at removing things in photoshop, it might take a while to get an image with no unwanted people in it. Alternatively, you could just go earlier or later in the day. There are no time restrictions on the car park or gates to lock you in.
The falls themselves are well spread out with a couple of larger cascades above and below a bridge that crosses the river. The area above the falls offers multiple smaller cascades that are well spread out. There are only a couple of obvious compositions if you want to get the whole cascade in to a single image but if you’re looking for more intimate compositions of some of the smaller cascaded and rock formations, the opportunities are vast.
There is also a nice wooden bridge that can be used as a focal point from various view points, although getting an image without someone stood on the bridge would be difficult. For the more adventurous photographer, you can get right down to the base of the falls if the flow of the river is quite low, although I wouldn’t recommend this if there have been periods of heavy rain. There is also a narrow patch leading down to the rock platform directly under the wooden bridge that will offer some different compositions.
I didn’t have much time in the location and unfortunately spent way too much time down at the water level and didn’t spend enough time looking for more interesting compositions, as a result I was quite dissappointed with the images I came away with. I didn’t spend nearly enough time exploring the area above the falls either.
I’ve included a couple of the images I’m less disappointed with below. I will visit this location again on my next trip and hopefully learn from these mistakes.
From under the bridge 
At the base 
The upper falls
Thanks for stopping by.
Have a good one!