Overview
The most photographed residents of White Park Bay are cows. A small herd grazes the dunes and regularly ambles down onto the three-mile sweep of sand, part of a conservation scheme that keeps scrub off the dune grassland and the wildflowers in it. Come on the right day and you will share the beach with them and very little else, which on the busy Causeway Coast is rarer than it sounds.
The bay has been in National Trust care since 1938. It sits in the townland of White Park, likely from the Irish An Pháirc, and keeps a quiet, half-wild feel despite the coast road running close behind it.
The singing sands
When the upper sand is bone dry, footsteps or a steady wind set the fine silica grains going and the beach lets out a low, resonant hum. It is more a vibration you feel than a tune you hear, and it only works once the tide has dropped back and the sun has dried the top of the strand, so late morning on a dry day is your best chance. Wet sand stays silent.
Wildlife and the dunes
The dunes are an Area of Scientific Interest, and the grazing is what keeps them rich. Orchids come up in the chalky grass through early summer, alongside the bluebells and primroses of spring. Rabbits keep the turf cropped and aerated, otters fish the shallows, and offshore you may pick out porpoises, dolphins or a grey seal hauled out on the rocks. On the cliffs, watch for fulmars riding the updraught.
History and geology
People have used this bay for a very long time. Neolithic settlers left their traces here, and above the beach a dolmen known as the Druid’s Altar looks out to sea, one of several old monuments that all seem to face the water.
Nearer the car park stand the ruined walls of a late-1700s school for young gentlemen. Among its pupils was Robert Stewart, later Lord Castlereagh, the foreign secretary of the Napoleonic era. The building later did a stint as a youth hostel before it was left to weather into the shell you see today.
The cliffs behind the beach are Upper Cretaceous chalk, laid down under a shallow sea. Walk the southern end of the strand and you can turn up belemnites, the bullet-shaped fossils of squid-like animals, weathered out of the soft rock.
Getting there and access
White Park Bay is about 6.5 miles east of Bushmills and ten minutes’ drive from the Giant’s Causeway, signposted off the coast road. Parking is free, but the car park is small and fills fast in summer; if it is full, the Trust would rather you came back later than parked on the verge. On the buses, the Causeway Rambler (Ulsterbus 376) between Bushmills and Carrick-a-Rede and the 252 from Belfast will both stop here on request.
Getting down to the sand means a steep flight of stone steps and some uneven ground, which rules it out for wheelchairs and makes hard work of a pushchair. There are no toilets and nowhere to buy so much as a coffee, so bring what you need.
Safety
Do not swim here. The bay has dangerous rip currents and is not a bathing beach, whatever the weather is doing. There is also a live rockfall warning on the unstable cliff between White Park Bay and Portbradden: keep off the cliff-top path on that stretch, and only cross along the beach at low tide. Check the tide before a full-length walk, as a high tide closes off the eastern end.
Exploring further
The bay is an easy stop on a wider Antrim Coast and Glens day, with the harbour at Ballintoy just along the coast and Bushmills and Ballycastle both a few miles off for food and a pub. For the sand at its best and quietest, and for any chance of hearing it sing, aim for a dry morning after the tide has gone out.