King Charles Coast Path - Bridlington to Bempton (Puffins) (★★★★★)

Having walked a longer stretch along the Yorkshire Wolds path on the prior day, I was looking for a shorter - but still enjoyable - walk to do on the following day - and settled for doing some more coastal walking from Bridlington, with the goal of either walking round to Bempton, or all the way up to Filey by the end of the day.

Part of the intent for this walk was to (successfully!) try and see some of the puffins at Bempton cliffs, which were something I had wanted to see for some time.

The walk on this day began at the train station at Bridlington, from which I headed out through the arcades - which felt a touch odd to walk through early in the day when the noise of all the machines could be heard but while there were no other visitor - to arrive at the beach.

This offered a chance to walk directly along the beach up from Bridlington to Sewerby, when it was time to move back up onto the official coastal route, in order to to up along the cliff route, out heading towards Flamborough. 

The early walking has mostly got a Victorian seaside town vibe, but at Dykes End the first more dramatic view of the sea comes, which is followed up by a clearer view out from Flamborough South Landing.

Flamborough South Landing

Here you have the life boat station just out of view to the left, and although there is a bit of beach to be seen here, there is no onward walking up the beach route and the path heads back up onto the cliffs on the other side (not unless you are a strong enough swimmer to get the rest of the way round Flamborough Head😆). 

From here the path follows along the top of the cliffs for a few miles before approaching Flamborough Head, where the number of people jumps up substantially - with this being a popular visitor spot.

Flamborough Head Lighthouse

Having cleared the lighthouse, the prettiest section of Flamborough Head starts, as you pass Selwicks Bay and it is possible to head down to the beach below using the steps down (although it is only advisable to go all the way if the tides and waves make this suitable - you can go most of the way down in all conditions and just use common sense here!).

Selwicks Bay at Flamborough Head

The view out having gone down most of the steps (best not to go all the way down today!)

Heading back up on the other side

This is a really lovely spot and it is nice to dawdle a bit hear and take the sights in before continuing up on along the cliffs. If the tide is out, I believe seals will come and bask on the beach here, which adds another point of interest.

From here the path is heading up north-west and the next major destination is Thornwick Bay, which is a small town of sorts (although with a much larger holiday park than actual town).

Thornwick Bay

There is a bit of a walk to be done navigating round all the juts in the cliffs heading out to see, but this is a good spot for bird watchers - where there are numerous birds flying about, which are nesting on the cliffs (you can often smell them before you see them 😆).

There is a supposedly good puffin spot here, but I see nothing and so my route continues on, still heading north-west along the top of North Cliff - and it is here that the level of bird activity really ramps up.

Whilst there are endless birds flying about, it is pretty windy and so knowing what the birds are is quite hard to determine - except in the case of the much bigger gulls which are much easier to identify. Some of these definitely do look like puffins, but with the speed at which they are flying past at it is really hard to tell exactly whether this is the case.

However, as the path reaches Bempton Cliffs - and as the path becomes much busier once again - I pass a spot where a load of photographers have gathered and standing behind them while they are taking their photos - I finally see some puffins.

Admittedly it is hard to see the puffins from this video - although the photographers got some cracking photos of them if that counts - but viewed with the naked eye the puffins, whilst very tiny, are clear to see with their brightly coloured faces.

Unfortunately my camera has a zoom that is pretty dire and so the best I can offer in the way of a zoomed in picture is this abomination :

My submission to the National Geographic

Since Van Gogh may as well have painted that puffin, here is a picture I nicked off someone else to show what I could actually see :

 

Puffin at Bempton Cliffs

From here, the going was pretty slow - not because the walking was hard, but because there were plenty of birds and cliffs to stop and take a look at - and I would certainly recommend a trip to Bempton Cliffs to see the puffins. That said if you do visit definitely head out from the main area, as the best spot to see the puffins was further to the south-east - on the edge of the core visited area (which was further than most people were going from the car park).

The bigger birds I could photograph no problem

Cliffs at Bempton - the birds are living on those cliffs

Reaching the visitor centre at Bempton I did consider continuing on to Filey to connect this walk up with the Cleveland Way, but having really enjoyed this spell at Bempton Cliffs, I figured it would be nice to return at a later date to spend some time on a less windy day, to see how that changed what you could see.

So it was, that I headed out along a path running alongside the road down into Bempton - where the train could be caught to take me home.

The train clearly is not a popular way of getting to Bempton Cliffs - with the car being the main preferred way - but actually this is a site that is very easy to get to from the train station if you are planning a visit.

Enjoyment Rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5

Disclaimer: This writeup provides a narrative of what to expect rather than a route guide to follow. The route is covered by the 101 OS Landranger map - while there is also a Yorkshire Coast guidebook which includes OS mapping and runs from the Humber Estuary up to Redcar (links redirect to Amazon). The route is in general well way-marked.