Westdale Bay

The Dale peninsula is so narrow that you can walk from the sheltered village beach to the open Atlantic in about fifteen minutes on a track across the fields. Westdale Bay is what you find on the far side: a wide sandy beach between red sandstone cliffs, facing straight west into St Brides Bay, exposed to everything.

It is a genuinely fine-looking beach and a genuinely hazardous one. There are strong rips here, the bottom shelves and shifts, and there are no lifeguards. Local advice has long been that swimming at Westdale is not sensible; surfers who know the break use it, but casual bathers should walk back over the hill to Dale. Take that seriously — it's the kind of beach that looks benign on a sunny day and isn't.

As a walk, a picnic spot and a place to watch the sun go down it's excellent, and it's usually near-empty because there's no road, no car park and no facilities. The final descent to the sand is a short scramble that's been eroded in places. From the beach, the Coast Path south climbs to Great Castle Head with its Iron Age fort and then on towards St Ann's Head; north it runs towards Marloes Sands and Musselwick. The Dale-to-Westdale-and-back loop is the easiest way to get a taste of the open coast if you're staying in the village with limited time.