Tyninghame Beach | Where East Lothian meets Tofino

Since we’ve moved to Scotland people seem to be obsessed with asking how awful the weather is “all the way up there”; let this blog post where I fangirl about Tyninghame Beach serve as proof that the weather is glorious in November. And no, we have not had snow, and I haven’t seen any White Walkers yet. 

East Lothian is an absolute gem. I think there’s so much going on in Edinburgh and with the draw of the Highlands that East Lothian gets overlooked so often. To be honest, I’m guilty of that myself. I remember being like, “what’s in East Lothian?” Beautiful beaches that’s what, past me, beautiful beaches. If you’re visiting Edinburgh and can get around, I definitely recommend paying a visit to some of the wonderful beaches (and golf courses right next to them if that’s your jam) dotted around East Lothian’s coast. 

We discovered Tyninghame a few weeks ago when I spotted the St. Baldred’s Cradle & Ravensheugh Sands hike on Walk Highlands (awesome website, btw). If my photos are not enough to convince you that this place is stunning, click that little link there. Go on, I’ll wait…

…Doesn’t it just look divine and a little exotic? As soon as I saw it, it reminded me of Tofino, so I showed Daz and we headed off. 

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The trail starts off in woodland and all of a sudden you find yourself on the beach. It’s a strange feeling to pop out of a wood onto a windswept beach – and I think that’s why it reminded me of Tofino so much. From there, you follow the trail through trees and some bizarre-looking anti-tank concrete blocks that have just been left there.

You keep going over headlands, watching the waves swell and crash into the shoreline (and inevitably watch the occasional fool risk serious injury to get a ‘good photo’), and then you end up on this huge, stretch of golden sand, rocks, and pebbles overlooking Bass Rock.

It’s the kind of beach you could probably spend all day playing on as a kid and never get bored. Keep an eye out for the tide times though; at high tide, you can’t walk the entire beach and the fun rockpools are covered up. But even if you do end up there at high tide, it’s stunning. 

We haven’t actually managed to follow the trail from Walk Highlands exactly as it is yet because we keep getting distracted, and wondering “what’s over there”. I think that’s wonderful though. We’ve been three times in the past few weeks and each trip has been different, whether it’s the tide being low or high, or us taking a different route through the woodland, or climbing up hills.

Both of our parents have been up recently and we had to take them to show them how amazing it was. You see, being so close to the beach is something a little mind-blowing to us. Where we used to live, it was a good two and a half – three hours to the nearest beach. And it wasn’t a beach like Tyninghame beach. It was Barmouth; a pretty standard beach running along a town. 

Before we moved up to Scotland, we kept talking about all the places we’d be able to visit and we’re so excited to be this close to the beach. The only thing is, we love it so much we keep going back to Tyninghame Beach and haven’t done much exploring elsewhere. I feel like we might have shot ourselves in the foot there because now the nights are pulling in, it limits how far we can go exploring.

Sure, we could get up earlier but I am the definition of being bad at getting in up early.

I am 100% a night owl; can’t sleep early on (unless we’re talking a cheeky mid-afternoon nap); will sleep through seven alarms that have woken the entire town up; and when I do wake up, I will happily stare at the ceiling for a while pondering the fact I need to get out of bed, and just not get out of bed. Just me?

The last time we visited Tyninghame beach we came across a big log cabin (it’s called Ravensburgh log cabin, and you can hire it out for weddings, parties, or asking your friends to bring all their dogs so you can lie on the floor and be trampled on by puppies – that, by the way, is the best reason to hire a place out.) It really took us back to Canada. Can you imagine coming across somewhere like that after a long day hiking, going inside and lighting a nice fire, putting your feet up, and chilling with a nice hot chocolate? Doesn’t that just sound like the dream? 

If you ever visit Edinburgh and you have a car (I don’t think this would be the easiest place to reach from the city using public transport) make sure you pay Tyninghame beach a visit, you won’t regret or forget it. 

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