Secret Beach: Hayburn Wyke

  ‘Secret Beach’ might become something of a series at Wild Wandering Folk as finding them is a new hobby of ours.

Hayburn Wyke is on the North Yorkshire coast and is easily accessible either by walking along the coastal path (right) or by parking at The Hayburn Wyke Country Inn and trudging through a few fields in a seaward direction until you find the trail.  We visited in winter so there were very few people around, but I get the impression this place is little known and pretty quiet most of the time anyway.

As I said, you have to wander through some pretty sludgy fields to get to the trial. I’m not exactly sure how we managed it but we ended up coming back to the car park a completely different way to that which we’d left it by, but they were both nice walks.

Once you’ve navigated the fields though you come to this path, which reveals very little about where it actually leads. First it takes you uphill to the top of a cliff where you get a glimpse of the beach below.

Then it takes you on a steep decline to the beach iteself where there’s a lovely little waterfall and rock pools and the like.

We did see a dead seal, which is not exactly what you want, but apart from that this place was amazing! There’s something quite special about being the only people on a beach.

As nice as Hayburn Wyke was in mid-January I imagine it is even more spectacular in the summer. A perfect picnic location and as we were leaving we saw a couple of fishermen, so I’m guessing it’s good spot for a bit of fishing too.

If you cross the bridge that runs over the stream leading to the waterfall and make your way up the rickety wooden steps you can also get up onto that coastal path I mentioned before where I took the photo at the very top of this post but which I think deserves to be seen bigger here.

I love the North Yorkshire coast at the best of times but Hayburn Wyke is especially if good if you prefer somewhere a little off the beaten track.