Kara Dere is the last nice, and actually wild, beach on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Kilometres away from the hotels, the concrete resorts and the shortsighted lust for fast profits. In the years when all the rest of the beaches to the south were either overbuilt or surrounded by hotels, Kara Dere remained an oasis of an alternative way of communication with people and with the sea. Everyone who has been to Kara Dere has his or her own story about the place.
If you want to learn more about what you can do to help us all save Kara Dere, visit the Save Kara Dere website or join the Facebook group. Let us not fall into illusions – considering the current social climate, sooner or later this place is bound to disappear, to be overbuilt. The people who’ve been fighting against the construction plans in Kara Dere need your support.
Kara Dere is located on the Northern Black Sea coast, about 5km north of the town of Byala. From the centre, take the road that leads to the town beach (the two parallel streets going east from the centre) and turn left at the first possible cross street. Following it, you will reach a steep ascent that will take you to the end of the town. From here on, the road is a dirt one, only maintained during the summer when more and more people go camping near the Kara Dere beach. In rain or in the spring getting out of there by car is very difficult, and in some cases even impossible. In the summer you can easily find the right way by noticing which of the roads has been used the most. In case you can’t, start from the last houses and go north, always choosing the bigger roads. About 1.5km later there will be a short descent at the place where the roads cross the bed of the gully which dries out during the summer. The right fork of the road leads to the southern end of the beach (500m) while the left fork leads to its northern end (3.5km).
Another road that also goes to Kara Dere and is a bit more suitable when it’s muddy starts from the road between Byala and Goritsa (the first fork to the left if you’re coming from Goritsa, about a kilometre after the sign with the name of the village). Of course, every year the condition of the road is different but at least there are no steep ascents or descents. It leads to the dirt road from Byala a bit after the steep descend to the gully at the southern end of the beach.