St Abbs to Eyemouth Coastal Walk: A Fun Family Adventure with Secret Beaches along the Berwickshire Coastal Path

Why We Walked from St Abbs to Eyemouth (Hint: Ice Cream)

Thursday 24th July 2025. Let’s not pretend I didn’t plan this walk with a treat in mind. We had pondered which way round to walk this linear walk, and settled on parking in St. Abbs and having Eyemouth as our halfway point, purely because that route led us straight to Giacopazzis. If you know, you know. Their ice cream is legendary locally, and there’s no better halfway motivation than promising your children (and yourself) a scoop of delicious ice cream after a bit of sea air. Grandma was also joining the hike, and as she’s not so used to longer walks, having a stop halfway meant she could either refuel on ice-cream and return, or send a distress call to grandad to pick her up 😂.

A Proper Coastal Walk – Beaches, Wildlife & Ghost Pirate Ships

Despite being a shade under 4 miles each way, this walk isn’t a “stroll along the prom with a Costa” kind of walk. It’s a proper coastal path, complete with epic sea views, bracing sea air, secret beaches, steep steps, and surprise wildlife (spoiler: it has claws, but it’s not a crab). The path is well-maintained and clearly marked, but there are a fair few steep steps between beaches – great for burning off energy, not so great for prams or little legs.

Top tip: Bring a baby carrier if you’ve got a non-walker with you – you’ll definitely want your hands free on the stairs.

We started the walk parked up in St. Abbs Harbour. There is a parking charge, which I’ve detailed further at the end. Not knowing how long we’d be, I erred on the side of caution and went for a day ticket. It was beginning to drizzle as we arrived but we were committed so we popped on waterproof jackets and booted up regardless.

Heading out of St. Abbs we were surprised how quickly we arrived at Coldingham Bay. Just a half mile later we were descending one of the many sets of steps onto this popular beach, where we were met by rock pools initially, and the boys spent a short time crab hunting!

This walk wasn’t short of interesting things to see or do for children: rock pooling, beach combing, climbing – it all helped break the walk up so it didn’t seem a long hike, and the boys loved every second, with no complaints the entire way (whooo!)

After some sandy leg workouts crossing Coldingham, we were climbing again — up to a much smaller, pebbly beach with a charming wooden bridge. It’s wild how different these two beaches are despite being neighbours. I was surprised how many beaches we had to go down to then ascend again – I’d imagined this would be more like the St. Abbs Head walk, where we were walking along the cliff edge the entire way.

The weather dried up again during this section and we had a lovely wander along well maintained cliff paths, with beautiful coastal views, until we eventually happened upon the ‘secret beach’ – a beach only accessible by this coastal walk apparently known as Linkim Shore. Despite being difficult to get to, there was plenty of evidence of visitors, including numerous fire pits, and sadly litter too, but what was best about this beach was the number of things the boys could search for! They spent a good amount of time searching for anything and everything, and proudly came away with various bits of sea-glass and, most exciting for them, crab pincers!

We managed to pull them away and headed up the steepest climb of the walk, back to the cliff tops where we met a friendly couple walking the opposite direction, that we also bumped into on the way back!

At the top our views were obscured by an old stone wall. It covered some distance too, and I couldn’t help but wander what the reason was – maybe once to keep sheep from a seaside cliff dive — but today it was full of rapeseed, and they seemed well-behaved.

Once the wall finished we were then left to a leisurely cliff top wander, taking in all the beautiful views, which included a ghostly looking pirate ship! Well, certainly when we started our walk it was a pretty convincing ancient pirate ship shape, however as we (and probably even it) moved, it became a much clearer side silhouette of…

The HMS Queen Elizabeth! We were excited to get nearer and hopefully see it better on the approach to Eyemouth but sadly it had long gone by the time we arrived.

What we did see however was the brave lifeboat crew towing in a presumably distraught small vessel, and we watched as it towed, then nudged toward the beach.

And as if all the boating drama wasn’t enough, as we were rounding the last corner toward Eyemouth, we were warned by a friendly dog walker: “There’s a mole up ahead!” We assumed it was, well… not moving. But no — it was very much alive and snuffling down the path like it owned the place! We carefully watched it for a few minutes, and it made it’s way to our eldests boot where apparently he was quite surprised at the strength of the mole as it tried to shove his boot aside! Another family, a lady and two similarly aged girls to our lads, came past, and we left them to view the mole – we passed them again in Coldingham on the way back too! Lovely to see other families out enjoying the walk!

Eyemouth greeted us with more drizzle and an unfortunate whiff of sewage from the beach end we don’t usually visit (didn’t expect that, we’ve never smelled anything grim at the other end before). But spirits were restored with a trip to Giacopazzis, our halfway highlight and the main reason we chose to do the route this way round.

Heading Back – and the Rise of the Frankencrab

Grandma had decided by this point that she would like to make the return with us, so after the ice cream we all headed back to St. Abbs. The return journey was simply a reverse of the above, so I won’t bore you all with the details again. The weather had picked up again as we left Eyemouth and we had a very pleasant, warm and sunny walk back. We did notice that by this point there were more people along the path and we actually found a half a dozen or so people on the ‘secret beach’, along with as many dogs! However it didn’t stop the boys from more beachcombing, and by the time we left, they had enough random crab parts to build their own fully assembled ‘Frankencrab’. I eventually negotiated them down to just one “particularly interesting pincer” to take home. The rest went back to the sea, ready for someone else to reassemble a Frankencrab of their own.

Is This Walk Right for Your Family?

This walk is challenging but family-friendly (for walking children or slingable little uns), packed with variety, and full of areas to explore. It’s not a walk if you need a push chair or have a dislike for steps… It’s a real adventure of a walk, and lets be honest, any walk with the promise of ice-cream halfway is going to be good!

There are benches here and there, and plenty of stopping spots to explore, picnic, or just sit and take in the views. We met a few people on the way there, and more as we returned – it’s clearly a popular route, especially when the weather picks up, and it was lovely to meet other families along the way.

Family Feedback on the St. Abbs to Eyemouth Coast Walk

The Route between St Abbs and Eyemouth was a great day out for us. We love beaches and miss them living in the Midlands, so getting out to explore the coastline was a winner for us whatever the weather was going to throw at us! Getting to visit 4 beaches along one walk was a real treat! After today’s walk we would be really keen to do more of the Berwickshire coastal walk: We’ve already tackled St Abbs Head but it appears there is more to do going South to Berwick-upon-tweed, and going Northwards too. Who knows where we will end up on our next visit to the Grandparents!

Both boys absolutely loved the walk, and mentioned how good a day they’d had many times on the way home. Seeing the mole, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and of course eating ice-cream were the real winners on this one!

TOTAL MILES: 7.77 | TOTAL TIME: 3h23 (2h49 Moving Time)

Good to Know

Car Parking: St. Abbs Harbour (£6 all day) / Eyemouth Harbour (unsure of charges)

Toilets: St. Abbs Harbour / Eyemouth Coop Carpark

Accessibility: Not suitable for pushchairs.

Café/Picnic Spots: Lots of benches en route / Cafe at Coldingham Bay / Plenty in Eyemouth.

Terrain: Mixed beach terrain – sand/pebbles. Natural footpaths and man made steps.

Family-Friendly Tips: Any features that make it particularly good for families (e.g., playgrounds, nature trails).

Points of Interest: Rock pools, secret beach, drill bit sculpture, Eyemouth disaster sculpture.

Safety Information: Steep paths and steps, cliff edges.

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