Hike to Negmawah Bay, North Coast, Trinidad

Have you ever heard about Negmawah Bay? Chances are, you haven’t but don’t worry, I myself only learned about this beach a couple of years ago and only recently got chance to visit. Let me introduce you to the little known north coast beach, Negmawah Bay 😁

On Easter Sunday, rather than eating some hot cross buns and chillin by my mother, my friends and I embarked on a hike to Negmawah Bay😎. This lovely beach is one of the many small inlet beaches located in La Vache Bay along the North Coast, Trinidad. Other beaches in this area include Pichon / Peechon Cove and Cyril Bay. Unlike Maracas and Las Cuevas beaches (the most popular beaches 💦 in Trinidad), these are only accessible via boat or by hiking.

History of the area:

The French creole word Negmawah according to article by Dewayne Berkeley, means either “hideout for slaves” or “runaway negro”. It is thought that this bay was used by slaves as a means to escape the island during slavery times. I am not sure how popular this beach was after that time, however, it is not a very well known spot from all accounts.

The hike:
The hike to this beach began with a short gradual uphill trek along a paved road labelled “North Coast Road” on google maps (see the purple X on the picture below). NB. We parked where the pink dot is 🚗 🚙.

At the start of the hike, we passed a few houses along the way. However, the real hike started after the paved road ended when we began walking along a wide dirt road which took us down the mountain 🏔 to the beach 🏝.

One thing I loved about this hike was the breathtaking views 🥰….. along the way we saw parts of the Paramin hills and of La Vache Bay. We think we were even able to spot the approximate location of both Pichon Cove and Cyril Bay from our vantage point.

The pros of a hike along a dirt road like this are that the road was very ride and clear, the cons, on a rainy day walking along this road will be extremely difficult you may slip and slide all the way down the mountain….. and that return journey will be almost impossible 🎿 ⛷. Thank God, we had some good weather on our hike day though, a light drizzle 🌦 but mostly sunny 🌞.

At about 0.5 km from the beach, we passed through a farm where they were planting green fig and baigan and this is where the dirt road ended. From this point on, it turned into a very skinny trail with some beautiful plants, something a plant lover like myself appreciated..🌸 🌼 🌻.

The first spot you arrive at is a small cove. This was a beautiful little spot, perfect to rest and relax, however, we had not arrived at our final destination as yet. To reach to Negmawah beach we still had to negotiate our way across one more small hill to enter the bay. This was more challenging than it seemed as the path was extremely skinny and seemed more suited for goats than persons. We had some dicey moments on this part of the trail (at one point we walked with one foot on a tree root and one foot on the side of the mountain 🙄) and during the last descent into the beach the rocks were extremely slippery…….. but thankfully we made it….in one piece with no injuries 🙂 Amen!

Unfortunately, this beach will not make it as one of my top beaches on the North Coast as there are prettier beaches in the area, but after that hike, the water was absolutely refreshing and I enjoyed taking a dip 😁. PS. There was some seaweed in the water thou….. 🙄.

The trek from the starting point to the beach took us about 1 hr 11 mins and we covered a distance of 3km. Of course we took much longer on our way back to the starting point and we ended up reaching the cars 1 hr 50 mins after leaving the beach. That uphill was pressure 😨 😰 😥! It was better than any workout in the gym for sure 🙂

Final thoughts on our hike to Negmawah Bay:

Overall, I think the views from this hike were amazing….. we really had to stop several times just to admire it. If I have to rate Negmawah Bay, based on beauty, I will give the beach a 6/10 (there are more beautiful beaches in the area in particular Peechon Cove and Cyril Bay), but in terms of a workout for those fitness focused persons who enjoy a good hike…. I will rate this an 8 (my legs felt that uphill and I was sore the next day) 🧗 🧗‍♂️.

Thank you for checking out this blog post. I am not sure if we will do public hikes to this location in the future with our Hikers United Club (check us out on FB, IG and TikTok) as it is more difficult that our hikers usually want for a hike and the beach is not as lovely as the many other places we normally visit 😊.

Much Love

Celly