Best sunset spots around Bournemouth

If you are chasing the sunset around Bournemouth, the best spots are not all in the town centre. The most reliable ones sit out on the coast, where the land drops away and you get a clear run at the horizon. Two of them, Hengistbury Head and Old Harry Rocks, are the obvious choices for anyone willing to travel a short distance from Bournemouth.

Hengistbury Head is a promontory that sits between Christchurch Harbour and Poole Bay, and it is one of the easiest to reach. It is a public park and nature reserve, about 36 metres high, which gives you a wide view across Poole Bay, Studland Bay and out to Old Harry's Rock. There is a visitor centre, a café and toilets on site, so it is a comfortable place to settle in for the evening. If you are not keen on walking the whole way, a road train runs from the visitor centre out to Mudeford Spit, which is a handy way to get further along the headland before the sun starts to dip. The land train usually runs from 10am to 4pm between Easter and October, with a break from 1pm to 1:30pm, and it stays out until 5pm during the school summer holidays. For the satnav, the postcode BH6 4EW will take you to the visitor centre. Beyond the view, the place is worth a wander in its own right: it is home to over 500 plant species, 300 types of bird and a good spread of insects, reptiles and small mammals.

Old Harry Rocks, at the eastern end of the Jurassic Coast in Studland Bay, is the more dramatic of the two. These chalk stacks formed about 100 million years ago and sit at Handfast Point, within Ballard Down, which runs between Swanage and Studland. Timing is everything here. The sun sets directly in front of the rocks from 1 May to 1 August, with late June being the best time of all, and the best windows for a proper sunset are late April or late August. If you would rather catch the sunrise, that happens from 1 March to 1 June and again from 1 August to 1 October. Parking is at the National Trust car park by the Bankes Arms pub, postcode BH19 3AU, which is free between 10pm and 8am, and the walk from there to Handfast Point is about 1.25 miles.

If you would rather stay closer to home, Bournemouth Gardens are a quieter option. They are Grade II listed and run for around three kilometres along the River Bourne, from Bournemouth pier to the old boundary with Poole, covering 20.5 hectares across the Upper, Central and Lower Pleasure Gardens and Coy Pond Gardens. They have held the Green Flag Award since 1999 and were planted between 1836 and 1840 to designs by Benjamin Ferrey and Decimus Burton. The Upper Gardens hold a North American Giant Redwood that is believed to be the largest in Britain, and the whole stretch is at Avenue Road, BH2 5SL. It is not a cliff-edge sunset, but it is a peaceful place to watch the day end without leaving the town.