Kargalı Gölcük Nature Park

Overview

Guide

Kargalı Gölcük Nature Park lies 18 kilometres from Bolu city centre on the road to the Kartalkaya ski centre. It covers 156.5 hectares and was declared a nature park on 17 April 2014.

The Directorate General of Nature Conservation and National Parks is unusually frank about what the park is not. Because the area is small and its range of habitats poor, it says, the flora is not especially rich: floristic survey found 174 species and subspecific taxa from 50 families. The bird list runs to 39 species, established partly from observation and partly from the literature, and the directorate explains the modest number by the park being dense, damp forest throughout. Of those species only the European roller is listed by the IUCN as near threatened; the rest are widespread species of least concern. It also states that the amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals were identified mostly from published sources rather than from the field, and that because the park is small most of the recorded animals use the whole of it.

What the park offers instead is proximity: it is close to central Bolu and to the main roads, which the directorate says gives it real value for recreation. Walking, watching plants and animals, taking in the view and tent camping are the activities, and it stresses that these are to be done in a controlled way. Tent capacity is 30; no visitor or vehicle capacity is recorded. The gates are open from 09:00 to 18:00, and there is a nature education centre on site, run under concession by an education and welfare association.

The park is reached from the D-100 Ankara-İstanbul road: about eight kilometres before Bolu city centre, turn south onto the asphalt road towards the Kartalkaya ski centre, and at its tenth kilometre a dirt road branches east into the park.