A Lovely Visit To Upton Country Park

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We visit Upton Country Park quite a lot. It is only 10 minutes drive away from our house, which makes it a perfect place to visit for us. Having lived in the Poole are for just over 20 years I like to think that I have visited all the local places of interest. It has only been in the last 4 years or so that we have been visiting Upton Country Park though.

The main reason we hadn’t been much before was that I didn’t realise how much there was there for the kids. I love a nice long walk around somewhere, but if there is no play equipment the kids were not interested. Over the last few years Upton Country Park has increased the amount of play equipment it has. Along the forest walks and just outside of the tea rooms, there are various wooden structures for the kids to climb on, over and swing from. And now there is a section of play are outside of the education centre there that looks like a little assault course and a wooden tractor for kids to play on too.

My kids are older now, so playing on these things is not cool. Most of the time when I visit Upton now it is just Hubby and I (and I am definitely too old to be climbing on things now lol). So, yesterday hubby and I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and go for a walk around Upton Country Park.

You now have to pay for parking all year round. One thing I found a little annoying is that they have a different (higher) charge for weekends. I thought this was a bit unfair for families visiting then.

We started off walking around the main house and around the gardens there. There are some beautiful trees, bushes and flowers growing all around. Also there are plenty of big open spaces for kids to run around in. At the bottom of the gardens there is a pond and you quite often see ducks walking around. All around the park and gardens are plenty of benches, so you can sit and rest for a bit before carrying on. There is a small kiosk for ice creams and drinks just outside the main house if you want refreshments.

It was lovely to see so many spring time flowers out. The gardens looked beautiful. I also took this as bit of an opportunity to practice taking photos. I’m wanting to improve my photography skills a bit for my blog. I need to learn a bot more about capturing the right light and things like that. But I am happy with the pictures that I took.

After doing a loop of the gardens and walking around the outside of the walled garden we decided to head down to the wood for a walk around there. whilst walking toward the wood we saw the lovely fairy houses that are on display by the path. I think this is a lovely little idea for the kids to enjoy, it makes the walks a little magical.

I didn’t take any photos as we walked around the woods or by the river as we were enjoying the walk and chatting. It was nice just taking everything in around us. As the weather was so good there were a lot of families and dog walkers around. It is nice to see so many people enjoying the park and the walks.

We walked back up to the main park alongside the river and the bay. There are a couple of little viewpoints for birdwatchers and nature lovers from which you can see pretty much over the whole of the bay.

We had a walk around the walled garden when we got back to the main park. The walled garden features a huge lawn which is bordered by a path and lovely border flowers. The top of the garden has a patio type area which has water fountains in it. Kids love running in and out of these in the summer. Again there are benches so you can sit and enjoy the garden. I think this is my favourite place to sit in the park.

A the top of the gardens is the tea rooms. The do a lovely cuppa and some lovely cakes in there. We were going to indulge but as the park was busy the queue for the tea rooms came out of the door and across the courtyard!

Upton County Park is a great place to visit for people of all ages and somewhere I will continue to go for many years.

Take care everyone