Ulley Country Park — Local services in Rotherham

Had a lovely gentle walk on a warm-ish Autumnal day. Parking was available at Ulley's main entrance and me and my family did the anticlockwise route around the lake, crossing at the bridge to head back to the car park.

After the first section there is a bit of walking on a country lane, and that was the only drawback as cars were flying down the narrow winding road at speed. This section is up hill, but we took the opportunity to call at the Royal Oak pub in Ulley village for a glass of lemonade.

The still day gave us some lovely reflections to see on the water, which were particularly good at this time of year. There are quite a few benches to sit at and enjoy the peace and tranquility.

Whilst there saw plenty of wild life, the normal swans, mallards and geese. But also several herons and a kestrel. There was also a falconer (I presume just visiting) who was flying a huge bird of pray, not sure what kind though.

There are toilets near the car park and several small sail boats launched from the boathouse whist we were there. I believe a cafe is open on some days in a month, but it didn't seem like everyday, so probably somewhere to take a flask of warm drink to.

I enjoyed the walk (albeit it was a very steady amble rather than walk) and we will be repeating the route again...

We went to Ulley Country Park today, it rained slightly on and off but it was still very warm. The wildlife was fascinating, despite the weather making it seem hopeless. Today we saw Northern Lapwings and Chinese Geese (I believe) for the first time, alongside several kestrels (three of which got fairly close), moorhens, coots, great crested grebes, mallards, swans, greylag geese, canada geese, a little egret, what we believed was a gadwall and a potential terrapin on the edge of the water. We didn’t see a heron on this occasion, but we most likely will on our next visit. The parking closed a bit earlier than we planned to stay due to us arriving after the school run, but we ended up finding a near enough parking spot. The trail around was slightly difficult due to the trail moving away from the reservoir at one point due to private land, but we managed to see it all by going a different way to get to the other side. Overall, this is a great place for birdwatching or just an overall...

Absolutely beautiful little reservoir. Reasonably flat very easy walk that takes around an hour to do one side of the reservoir, loop around the top end and back down the same side. Don't do what we did and walk up the road after the bridge though the first time, it takes you too far out. Lots of water birds to visit and feed if you take duck food/ peas (do not feed bread please!!! See many do this and it's so bad for them :( ) There are lovely carved benches and sculptures , and a brilliant bird hide area as well as information boards and metal stamps of wildlife shapes to do charcoal/ wax art rubbings on. Such...