Kielder Water and Forest Park

Good firm path with a few ups and downs. Good car park with excellent facilities

Kielder forest lies away from the popular coastal route of Northumberland - calm and beautiful views. There were 3 main 'stop' venues on the west of the lake - each was 'accessible to all'. Each had an eating/drinking place and stunning scenery. I would definitely recommend including this area when visiting Northumberland.

The path around Kielder reservoir is 26 miles of wide, disability accessible paths. This is a multi-use path for many users, except for cars, making it very safe to navigate and plenty of room for everyone. There are a few different places to eat around the lake (including The Calvert Trust – an outdoor activities centre disabled people), all hosting car parks making it possible to pick a section of the path you would like to explore or travel around the whole route. There is also a wheelchair friendly, passenger ferry situated at two points around the reservoir which sails from shore to shore. There is a sculpture trail around the route; however some of these are not accessible due to uneven paths leading off the main trail. Everything is well signposted the whole way around. The downsides are a few steep hills which aren’t impossible but are possibly more difficult to push wheelchairs up. Also, the north shore has no points of contact from Kielder down to the dam wall (12 miles).