January 4th 2025 - Cogden Beach to West Bay & Back

Well, I’ve managed it, I’m on my first walk of the New Year, as planned, time to work off the Christmas over indulgence.  I’ve come down to Cogden for this one, free parking for NT members, tee hee, always a plus point in my book. It’s a duller day than I was hoping for and a cold East wind blowing but I was determined to get out and get cracking. Not the best conditions for filming but comfortable for walking.

There are no facilities at Cogden, so any toilet checks or coffee breaks need to be done before arrival, or walk cross legged to Hive beach, (can that be done?).

Today was a chance to try out a new app on my phone.  My son Lee bought me a subscription to the AllTrails app for Christmas. Previously I’ve used guidebooks, google maps and a free lesser-known app to plan my routes. AllTrails promises to give me my exact location en route, tell me my distance travelled, distance still to go, my elevation and my time taken on the trail, as well as my walking speed. I’m not sure that I want the last one as I tend to stop a lot en route and I don’t really want to compete with myself in keeping my pace up. That’s not what my walks are about. One good thing about the app is that I can invite family to follow me on their phones and they can keep an eye on my progress. Two downsides of the app are 1. You have to pre-plan your route on a computer at home and not on your phone, and 2. If you wander slightly off the route you have planned, you get annoying text messages telling you so.  Also the maps on AllTrails are very poorly detailed, making it hard to reference and identify points of interest. I have to refer back to books and Google maps for that. This is not a review by any means, just observations from my very limited use so far. I shall report back after I have used it a few times.

It’s just a short downhill walk from the car park down to the beach. I then headed westwards on the shingle for a short while, soon hitting a firmer path past the Old Coastguard Caravan Park. It is possible to walk round to Hive (Burton Bradstock) on the beach but the path is much easier.  It’s less than a mile of easy walking  to Hive beach where there are toilets and a café/coffee shop.

It was here that I went a bit wrong on my walk. When I planned my walk (on AllTrails) I did my route  up some steps near the beach and along Cliff road past 'The Seaside Boarding House'. It turns out that this route is privately owned, though permissive, and its okay to go this way, but the actual coast path goes inland from the NT car park and through the fields behind the Boarding House. I didn’t get an alarm message on my phone on this occasion because I’d planned my route this way.

The path along the clifftop to Freshwater Beach was easy walking again until you drop down into Freshwater where there is a steepish drop down, which, under normal conditions, would be fine but as there had been a frost this morning I found it a little tricky to descend.

The river Bride stops direct access to the beach here and I had to double back on myself a little along the river to where there is a bridge. This leads into the Freshwater Holiday Park which seemed a bit weird being empty as its closed for the winter.

Although I consider this to be a local stretch of the coast, we have stayed at Freshwater in our campervan a few times as well as calling in on afternoon outings just to use the Jurassic centre on site.

The Jurassic centre is a great place to visit, especially out of season when the site is closed or less busy. It's all indoors and has a great main swimming pool and an amazing fun pool next to it with water slides water cannons and all kinds of fun stuff. There is a jacuzzi, saunas, amusement arcade and a gym.

Upstairs there is a bar and restaurant and a bowling alley. All in all, a great day out.

Ironically, for us it was cheaper in low season to stay overnight on site and use the facilities inclusive in the pitch fee, than it was to call in for the day and pay. 

I digress, and no they haven’t sponsored this blog, back to the walk.

The coast path would normally cross the site close to the beach then climb up steeply to the top of the famous West Bay cliffs to drop back down the other end into West Bay, but, due to a large number of big cliff falls over the last couple of years and more cracks appearing on the path, this section has now been closed for the foreseeable future. Even walking along the beach under the cliffs is extremely dangerous and should not be attempted. The path has therefore been diverted to the top of the Holiday Park and across the golf course, a route that is still very pleasant and affords lovely views inland.

On observing the age and ability of some of the golfers, I did, however, keep a constant eye out for any stray golf balls heading towards me.

After crossing the golf course, the path drops steeply down into West Bay where, me being me, I headed straight to the Cornish Bakery for the obligatory pasty and Cappuccino, ignoring the message from my app telling me I’d wandered off course! Who gives a sh** when there’s a pasty involved.

I had a quick look around West Bay while I was there, enjoying looking at the Xmas tree in the centre made from lobster pots and buoys.

I then wandered to the beach to observe (from a distance) the latest cliff fall before making my way back towards Cogden retracing my steps apart from taking the proper coast path route behind the boarding house on approaching Hive beach.  The only notable difference on my return journey was the cold east wind being in my face and making my eyes water somewhat.

According to my app this walk was 7.76miles with an elevation gain of 581ft and took me 2hrs and 59mins. Good job I paused the app while I ate me pasty!