Plenty of different walks for different abilities
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This review is especially helpful for those who have or use the following: Assistance Dog, Wheelchair
Overview
Clumber Park is one of our favourite places for a day out. It's just off the A1 so it's easy to get to. There are good toilet facilities and places to get food and drink. Best of all, there are lots of walks. Our favourite walk is to go anti-clockwise around the lake, which is about 5 miles, I think.
Transport & Parking
We always drive to Clumber Park. There is car parking, including blue badge spaces, though these tend to fill up quite quickly. We often bring our motorhome, and park it in the coach bays, usually along with several others. It is a short walk from the car park to the visitor centre.
Access
I find disabled access to be excellent here! That said, I usually bring my mountain trike, rather than my manual wheelchair... only because the walk we like best is through woodland and gets muddy and uneven in places. There are lots of concrete paths but some are shared with cars, so I prefer to get off the beaten track. The walk around the lake starts on concrete. Then you go over a beautiful bridge and turn left. It soon becomes a dirt track... quite firm and a nice surface which is really comfortable to ride along. The woodland path has some hills. They are steep in places but quite short, definitely following the principle of 'what goes up, must come down'. Just over half way round, there is a toilet block and a mobile cafe, which is usually open and does a nice hot chocolate. I find Clumber Park one of the best places for walking my dog. It is quite varied, with streams, the lake, the woods, fields, tracks, etc. I have certain places where I let Liggy off lead and she really loves it there. It is very dog-friendly and even has a cafe that allows dogs.
Toilets
There are several accessible toilets in the park. The toilets on the other side of the lake (our halfway stop) aren't accessible. I usually have to go anyway, and struggle in with a bit of help from hubby. At the moment, the main accessible toilet is closed but there is one in the discovery centre, which is probably better anyway. My only real complaint is that the nappy bin can only be opened by foot and isn't close enough to the toilet, so changing big adult pads is a bit tricky. Oh, and they have that toilet paper that is so thin that it tears off as soon as you touch it, so getting enough out is a struggle.
Staff
We didn't see many staff but whenever we have spoken to staff, they've been great.
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