Introduction
Kerachut Beach is a lovely stretch of white sandy beach located in the Penang National Park. It takes an easy trekking to get there, and is home to a turtle sanctuary.
What to Expect?
It shelters a meromictic lake, and it is home to the Penang Turtle Sanctuary, which is located just behind the beach.
How to get to Pantai Kerachut
There are 2 ways to get the beach:
1. The first option is to take a boat from the entrance of the National Park at Teluk Bahang (which cost you around RM100 for a boat that fits around 10 people).
2. The second and most popular option is to simply hike in through the Penang National Park. Fear not, it's not difficult to get there.
- A seasoned hiker can get there in about hour from the park entrance
- Any other casual visitors can get there in about 1.5 hours, typically under 2 hours.
We recommend that most visitors take the hiker route, to enjoy both the national park and the beach in a trip. We recommend planning ahead for back-and-forth hike, and give it a safe estimate of 3 hours.
For preparation, we recommend that you bring extra water, as you make your way through the trail and at the beach area you might not find any vendor selling beverages.
From the map, there are two paths through the national park to Pantai Kerachut.
- The first and easiest way is to walk for 1/2 km along the coast from the park entrance and take the first left up over the hill and down again the other side - This pathway is quite wide, easy to follow and not too steep.
- The other slightly longer way is to head to the Canopy Walkway and continue up the hill from there where it meets the first path near the top of the hill.
This path is a lot narrower, steeper, less used and with much more forest debris littered over it making it harder to walk along.
On the way down from the top of the hill, there is also another split in the path.
At the end of the trail, you will be crossing a bridge, which takes you across the river to Pantai Kerachut.
Here you would see meromictic lake at the end of the beach, turning left will take you around the lake to the campsite.
The Beach
Pantai Kerachut is a white sandy beach, which has much fewer crowds than all the popular beaches - including the Monkey beach in the same park. It’s quiet and peaceful there, and it’s almost certain that you’ll find some shady areas to just sit back and relax.
The beach is also a perfect spot to have your lunch picnic under the shady trees or some wooden huts. Even on weekends the crowd level is typically low, thereby the beach is always very serene and relaxing.
One thing to keep an eye on is the monkeys, so do keep an eye on your belongings.
There's also a campsite right by the beach that visitors can camp and spend a night in, they would have to get the permission from the Penang National Park.
Turtle Sanctuary in Pantai Kerachut
One unique feature of Pantai Kerachut is that there’s a small turtle sanctuary there.
Green turtles nest there from April to August, and the olive ridley from September to February. In 1995, a turtle hatchery was set up in Pantai Keracut, and is now managed by the State Fisheries Department, Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and the Forestry Department.
The visitor gallery is a small exhibition educating user on the life cycles of turtles, along with some preserved carcasses of turtles and a egg nurturing and hatching ground.
You can also find some turtles being kept in a tub, with only one-foot deep water in it.
Meromictic Lake
There is also a very rare meromictic lake here (a lake of two layers of salt and fresh water that don't mix) but to be honest, you can't really see that much, just looks like any other lake and sometimes the lake is totally empty.
With such a beautiful beach - even if you have just walked through the rainforest and are hot and sweaty, the beach definitely worth all the efforts to get there.
Look Around
Address: Pantai Keracut, Teluk Bahang, Tanjung Bungah, Pulau Pinang
010-336 8958
Everyday 8:00 AM - 5:00 PMFeatures
Kid's Pools
Wading pools to cool the hot day down
Reviews
4.5
(527)
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Khanh Nguyen (Bomquay)
a week ago???????? ????? & ?????? ????
???????? ????? is not far from ?????????? ????. From the view at the lake, you can see the sea ahead. I told myself that I was going to reach the beach, and ready to enjoy tasty food there. Keep going... But oh no...
There is a turtle conservation centre at ???????? ?????, but there are only a few baby turtles swimming in a small pool, some exhibits, a public toilet and no other services. The boat driver only accepted passengers with pre-purchased tickets at the entrance, however we didn't buy.
Luckily, we saw a local guy (who seemed like a staff in ?????? ????). We asked him for a full bottle of water and asked him to negotiate with the boatman to take us back to the entrance with ????? (614,000 VND). We would have paid ????/person only at the entrance.
We couldn't walk anymore. ?
How exciting. It was so refreshing and no more tired during a 15-minute ride on the sea. The boatman also paused to present some places on the way to us.
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?????? ???????? ????
Teluk Bahang, Penang, Malaysia
Open: 08:00 - 17:00 (Mon-Sun)
Conservation Fee: 50RM/per
Round Boat Ticket: 100RM/per
(one way ticket: 50RM/per)
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???????? | My Self-Guided Tour -
Shazia Khan
2 months agoVery disappointing, drove all the way to Pantai Kerachut for seeing the turtle beach but when we got there , found out additional charges needed to be paid for entering the trekking area and the boat charges were high too but the turtle sanctuary was closed so there was no point going there. However the boat representative was great at explaining everything and extremely helpful and he recommended a beach which was a 2 minute drive away !
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Patrick Holst Jervild
4 months agoThis is one of the best beaches in the island of Penang! You only find great water quality at a couple of beaches and this is one of them.
At this beach you can sea plenty of eagles patroling in the air, giang black sqirrels, and at the far end of the beach there is a turtle sanctuary where they often have small turtles to be released in the ocean. The snall turtles are released in the ocean 7-10 days after their eggs are hatched which increase their chance og survival. It’s definitely a must to visit if you go the this beach. Thanks for your great work at the turtle sanctuary! -
Martin Dulák
4 months agoSo they tell you to spend about 2 hours at the beach but there's really not much to do around.
I'd visit it for the trek, which si nice, and the turtle hatchery. But no more than an hour needed for exploring the beach itself. It's not THAT nice. ? -
Joe G
3 weeks agoNice beach. Took around an hour to hike there. Swimming isn't allowed (advised) as supposedly lots of jellyfish!
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