A beautiful wide expanse of pristine sand, with wide rivers, rocks, pools and sand bars.
Heading east out of Bettyhill, Armadale is an 8 mile, 15 minute drive away. There is parking, visible as you approach, on both the left and right side of the road. Although there are picnic benches on the right side, leave those for passing tourists, as there are also picnic benches at the end of the path at the beach, or you could picnic on the beach itself. Indeed, with its rocks offering shelter, it is a great place to take a camping stove, disposable barbeque or even to collect sticks for a fire for a hot lunch (just clear up after yourself).
The walk down to the beach is fairly straight forward, following the farm track to the purpose made footpath along the edge of the river, over the bridge and on the other side of the river to the picnic beaches in the dunes.
There are two rivers that flow onto and across the beach and, by following this path down to the beach, you will arrive on the right side of both of them. If you are wearing wellies or crocs then it is relatively easy to cross the rivers but they are too deep to cross without swamping walking boots, and in bare feet, the sharp rocks get intolerably painful after a while.
So, if you don't want to cross the rivers, you can head to the east side of the beach and also climb up onto the headland. Crossing the rivers opens up the west side of the beach for exploration, with interesting rock pools and sheltered spots amongst the rocks - but keep an eye on the tide!
The beach is a wide expanse of golden sand, often with no one else on it, so it can be a lovely place to allow children to play. Shifting sand from place to place, as children do, damming the streams and paddling in pools, there is enough to keep children happy all day.
Notes for visitors with limited mobility:
Since the installation of a new footpath, access to this beach has been greatly improved. It is possible to park at the side of the road and here there is a gravel farm track down a relatively steep slope. This is the trickiest part of the route so it can be assessed for suitability before starting the trek. At the bottom of the slope, the new footpath starts and it is a smooth route all the way down to the beach, including sloped access over the footbridge. At the end of the path are three picnic benches. Access onto the beach itself is unlikely to be possible.