Olukbaşı is a very new protected area: 1.81 hectares in the Saraçlar quarter of central Kastamonu, declared a nature park by ministerial approval on 9 May 2025 and reached by way of Koru Sokak. It is small, urban and easy to get to — 600 metres from the Kastamonu-Ankara road and about 200 metres from the Kastamonu-İstanbul road.
The whole site is forest. The dominant tree is Anatolian black pine, mixed with beech and hornbeam where the ground is damp and with oak on the south-facing slopes and near the ridges. Beneath them grow dwarf juniper, hawthorn, dog rose, bramble, barberry, milkvetch and ivy, among other shrubs and herbs.
For its size the wildlife list is long: Persian squirrel, pine marten, fox, wild boar and brown hare, with a number of raptors known from the higher ground — long-legged buzzard, griffon vulture, bearded vulture and booted eagle.
One caution: the directorate writes about the park's facilities in the future tense. It is described as an area that *will* serve walking, picnicking, rest and sport, with a nature education centre and a taxidermy museum of wildlife among the things planned. Treat it for now as woodland with a path to it rather than as a laid-out park.
The park is placed within the Kastamonu tourism route, and the directorate lists a nature conservation and national parks promotion centre among the things intended for it alongside the education centre and the taxidermy museum. By road it is 240 kilometres from Ankara and 510 from İstanbul.
- Designated
- 09.05.2025
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kastamonu as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -0.9 °C in January to 20.2 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (75 mm) and lightest in February (27 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
