Yorkshire is not short of beautiful beaches, but if you’re looking for somewhere a little more secluded to sun yourself when the April heatwave strikes, Kettleness Beach is definitely worth a visit.
Boasting a beautiful cascading waterfall that can only be reached by venturing down a steep cliff face, it’s somewhat off the beaten track, to say the least.
Located on the Kettleness Headland between the villages of Runswick Bay and Sandsend, it forms part of a quiet cove on land that juts out into the North Sea.
The area is famed amongst fossil hunters who’ve found many rare pieces here, and on a clear day, you can see as far as Whitby Bay.
Reaching the beach itself, though, is not for the faint-hearted – as it’s a bit of an effort to get down to it.
According to the Yorkshire Guide, you need to “scrabble down a very steep and uneven path whilst hanging onto rope” to make your way down to the remote beach.
The guide adds that, in wet weather, this can be very dangerous.
Once you get down there, though, you will be rewarded with the sight of a beautiful waterfall that cascades right onto the sand.
You might be lucky enough to find some dinosaur bones, too. Recently, a young man from Whitby who regularly scours the area’s beaches found a rare 180 million-year-old ichthyosaur vertebrae here.
Liam Langley, 25, told The Scarborough News of how he dragged the large rock all the way up the rope access beach: “This month I found a large rock on the beach with the remains of a 180 million-year-old sea creature called an ichthyosaur that was swimming in the seas at the same time as dinosaurs were on land.
“It contains nine articulated backbones from the extinct sea creature.
“I dragged the large rock back from the rope access beach at Kettleness all the way to Runswick Bay. ”
So if you fancy a change, why not ditch the arcades this time around and go fossil hunting instead? You never know what you might find here.
Feature image – Helen Wilkinson via Geograph
