Hayling Island Seafront – At the End of the Rainbow

The Hayling Island seafront has a more than 3 miles long beach which is mainly pebbly and the sandy part becomes visible during low tide only. The first thing that comes to my mind when someone mentions Hayling Island seafront to me is ‘beach huts’. I love the small, colourful huts being lined up along the beach.

I can’t imagine spending the whole day in or around my beach hut during summer holiday but I love their look (on a quiet day).

Hayling Seafront is more than just beach huts though. There are several shorter, signposted walking routes that you can ‘mix and match’ and combine them as you wish. You can walk all along the coast with a more or less parallel path a little bit away from the coast along the road and cut through on several occasions. When the view is clear, you can see the silhouette of the Isle of Wight.

When the tide is low the beach becomes very shallow, especially to the west end. I like this part of the island a lot. Not just because of the walks you can do but also to sit down at the beach, watch the sea and some (kite) surfers. Although not far away from home, I sometimes wish Hayling would be closer just to go there, sit at the beach and watch the sunset after work.

To the very west you can see Portsmouth and walk up North to where the ferry to Portsmouth is docking and where the Ferry Boat Inn is. I haven’t tried it yet but I will probably do one day.

Hayling Island had a quite important strategic position during WW2 with a top secret depot for special training purposes. The south-western part of Hayling Island has also some smaller old defence buildings from WW2 left.

One of the earlier mentioned signposted paths is the WW2 herritage trail that leads to the COPP (Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) memorial.

I haven’t managed to discover the seafront up to the very eastern end yet. That’s planned for another day, maybe together with the so far unexplored east coast.