Keyhaven Harbour

Keyhaven Harbour is a flat 1.5-mile (2.6 km) out-and-back from Keyhaven Amenity Car Park to a jetty and back. Allow 1–2 hours. It is a simple coastal outing, not a loop: the return retraces the same path. If you want a longer circuit with an inland return, the separate 3.5-mile Keyhaven Marshes walk follows a different route.

Leave the car park onto Keyhaven Road, pass The Gun Inn, then turn down Lower Pennington Lane and cross the mouth of Avon Water. Turn right through a gate onto the gravel sea wall. The path stays level and open, though the gravel is uneven in places. Fishtail Lagoon lies beside you, with a large nesting island; across the Solent, views open to the Isle of Wight and the Needles. Near the lagoon’s far end, ignore the steps dropping beside a cut channel. The main route bends right and continues to the jetty.

The jetty is the turnaround and a good place to stop for the wide view over the Solent. Frame toward the Isle of Wight and Needles from here. Keyhaven’s small-boat harbour has been used since at least 1206; boats carried cattle and sheep between the Isle of Wight and mainland water meadows. Later, canals and docks among the lagoons served coal imports and salt exports. The flat marsh edge supported trade as well as wildlife.

The route is listed as accessible. Four accessible parking bays and an accessible toilet are at the start, but note the gate and uneven gravel. The Gun Inn is beside the starting road; do not expect food or water along the sea wall. Fishtail Lagoon’s island is a bird-nesting site; summer brings nesting gulls and winter brings waders such as Brent geese and dunlin. Dogs under control may use the sea-wall path, but not the reserve itself. Keep off the intertidal mudflats: they are dangerous to cross, and the route stays on the wall.