Holy shit balls!! How have I not seen this place before! Maybe it’s because it sounds like its in Ireland or that the whole south park crew might jump out screaming “oh no. They killed kenny!!” However its neither of those. Nope it’s in Carterton and its called killkenny lane country park
It’s about a 40 mins drive but well worth it. To be honest after reversing the car into the house yesterday the cars been making a weird noise so I wasn’t sure it’d make it. However my trusty steed made it there and back!
Once you get there you turn into a huge estate (pretty new by the looks of it) and the speed limit is 10 mph for the majority of it! Would have taken 30 mins otherwise!
Parking
As we were meandering at snail pace through the roads while Elliot sat in the back screaming faster, faster. I was starting to wonder if my sat nav was taking the piss again! However it appears to like me today so led us straight to a car park. It was fairly empty so I had no issues but its not the biggest car park I’ve seen so I can imagine it gets pretty full fairly quick on weekends. I did have a look on the roads around and I couldn’t see any parking restriction signs but then I am going for an eye test tomorrow so who knows! The roads are like kingsmere every fucker parks like a twat and makes it near on impossible to get through.
Unbuckled old speedy from the back and off he shot down the path. Straight into the view of the park. Gonzales picked up speed and I tried to keep up waddling behind him. You can’t miss the park if you follow the sat nav to this car park. If you do I’ll book you a flight to Switzerland for you to euthanize yourself (don’t damage the gene pool any further)
Awesome looking
Even from a distance I could see this was going to be a good one all the time hoping it wasn’t going to be a death trap from up close.
1st thing Elliot spotted was the conveyor belt with a horse. I’ve no idea what the fuck the conveyor belt if for because it doesn’t actually convey anything really. Unless you count your kid running along it. It’s cool though and Elliot liked jumping up and down. I can imagine it’s a slippery bastard when it’s been raining though!
Horse ridden then straight over to the cargo hammock. Pretty darn cool not seen one of these before and this park gave us 2. Elliot still managed to fall of and face plant the mud even though it was only a few inches from the ground (insert slow clap here)
From here he wanted to go on Maybe one of the longest zip wires I’ve seen. You can shit right off I thought. No chance am i running that mini marathon. I do spinning 3 times a week I don’t need more exercise how else will I maintain my mum bod! I distracted him with the rope snake swinger (nope not Jimmy Savile) it was the same swing thing that they had in Croughton I love them….maybe more than Elliot.
In this area of the park (this being a tiny fraction by the way) you also had what looked like a table you’d find in a morgue or hospital ready for a post mortem or even the table you’d find in Mr greys red room! (Kinky) only this bugger wobbles and swings like Mr Blobby on crack. It also has the baby swings, older kids swing and the big cargo style swing.
Sand pit for day’s
Beyond this you have Newquay beach! Maybe a slight exaggeration but its a big ass sand pit. Off Elliot went feet first. Sand in his crack within seconds! Lots of wooden structures for sand play. Great…..only the bucket was missing from the winch, bit shit If I’d have known we’d have taken a bucket and spade and possibly the dead body of my husband. I reckon this pit goes pretty deep! Ah well future reference for if i do ever need to hide any evidence.
Then we went over to the Bertie big bollocks of climbing frames! It looked like something straight out of robin hood (Kevin Costner not the shit one with Russel crow) this part is immense I mean wow! It’s old but not deathly old. You can see new parts where they’re keeping on top of the upkeep. Saving grace was Elliot couldn’t reach any of if! Whoop bum unclench commence. I was not looking forward to climbing up there with him!
Slides
Luckily we had 2 huge slides to distract him. When they slide down the wavy slides they have to climb mt Everest to get back to the top again. Which was fine, again could prove tricky but funny to watch in the rain!
He then spotted the nights round table. Fuck knows what this did he climbed on and I assumed it was a roundabout. No chance could I move that big twat let alone spin it! It’s huge and it’s heavy. Not sure what it is so please enlighten me. Maybe I’m weaker than I think who knows!
Over some wobbly bridges into a willow maze. Cute idea but pretty shit. I’m judging all this natural willow stuff became popular at the same time. Kind of like poppers (the trousers not the drugs) did in the 90s so everyone tried it then soon gave up when they realised they were pointless. They do look nice but i just don’t think willow is the best plant for the job (sounds like me in my last job interview)
Toddler area
We rounded back to which I’d assume is the toddler area. You can tell when you come across a toddler area because most if them if not all have the famous springy face twatters! No exception here then. They also had the tunnel in this section, a see saw (looks like you’d get a splinter on your gooch though so best avoid) and another slide. This slide had a pond on it though so we avoided it (no waterproofs again) a little bit further across they had 2 trampolines too (always go down well)
They had some more Equipment too but i can’t be arsed to list it all. We then went for a little walk round the outside of the park while watching all the aeroplanes. If your kid likes planes they’ll love it here. Big ones taking off every min (no exaggeration) someone mentioned it was close to Brize Norton? There is a huge area to walk around and explore but we really didn’t have the time. My dumb ass husband text to explain that he’d locked himself out the house!
More to explore next time
By the looks of it There’s ponds and lakes too. Be careful and maybe avoid walking at night. Not sure if it was just me but there were some shady looking characters knocking about I don’t mean the Gary glitters and Rolf Harris looking kind but the druggy kind. It would also appear that the majority of people around here go for the Mr T look. The bigger the gold chain the better!
The park itself was dead. We were the only people there when we arrived. There were lots of dog walkers going past and I’d say it’s a great place to walk the shit machines (clean and bin don’t bag and dangle ffs) dogs aren’t allowed in the park but I’m guessing they don’t abide rules around here as we saw several dogs by the end of our visit pissing up the zip wire poles!
Killkenny lane country park stats:
Distance from Bicester: 40 mins
Sat nav: Elmhurst Way, Carterton OX18 1EY Click Address to load navigation
Wheelchair friendly: yes
Equipment upkeep: 7/10 old but sign of upkeep
Cleanliness: 7/10
Facilities: 7/10
Age range: All ages
Safety: 7/10
Fun factor: 10/10
Dog friendly: in parts
Conclusion
This is an awesome park. Up there in the top ten I’d say. Great for all ages and worth the visit. Next time we go I’ll take the eldest to try out the climbing frame, we’ll take buckets and spade and probably the bikes too. There’s plenty of bike racks to use while you play and have a picnic. Another thing I’d say is look out for the rocks. In my opinion rocks/ boulders have no place in a play area. The ones here have been placed in what i thought was going to be a water play area. So they’re almost in a little valley. This way your child can pick up some speed slipping down the hill before twatting their tiny faces open on the rocks greeting them below.
Thieving toilets
Oh p.s watch out for the toilets. I was desperate for a pee. Got to the car park where they were and realised they were 20p (take change) luckily found one down the back of the car seat (along with an unholy amount of other crap) put it in and the robbing bastard swallowed the 20p and didn’t open the shitting door! It wasn’t even the one that said out of order ffs!
Have you been? What did you think?
