If you're looking for an outdoor destination with diverse scenery that the entire family can enjoy, Producer Clay Johnson and his videographer Eric Olson show us how an old golf course in Flat Rock has been transformed into a beautiful park that has ponds, mountain streams, walking trails, flower gardens, and more.

- Zekie, hi.

Good boy.

You good dog.

Zeke is a shepherd/lab mix.

He's a rescue dog.

When I come to the park, I almost always have Zeke, my dog, with me, and we start on a perimeter and do the perimeter trails.

I let him stop and sniff, and we keep walking along.

We cross the bridges.

There are wildlife habitats here.

The geese come in seasonally.

The birds are here.

We've seen bunnies, we've seen turtles.

There's always something to look at.

There's always fresh grass to munch on, and there's always nice smells to sniff.

We love this park.

We come most every day.

[cheerful music] - [Clay] For decades, this 66-acre tract of land in Flat Rock was a nine-hole public golf course, but in 2013 it closed and went up for sale.

- The village of Flat Rock realized that this was an excellent location for a public park.

So the village of Flat Rock acquired the property and we've been working for the last 10 years to bring it up to a beautiful nature preserve.

- [Clay] It's called the Park at Flat Rock.

- It's a nature park.

It's to protect and preserve the natural wildlife and the flora and fauna, and it's a passive park.

So we don't have ball fields, but we do have activities in terms of yoga, and kind of passive activities like that.

But generally it's here for people to enjoy the quiet and the beauty.

- Inhale and exhale to bring your chin to your chest, bowing your head down.

- [Michael] The park is used by so many different people in our community.

Not just people in Flat Rock, but people from Hendersonville, people from Asheville, Greenville, all over, we get people.

People love to come to the park to ride their bicycles.

People love to walk their dogs.

They have picnics.

They bring their kids to play on the playgrounds.

School groups use it as an educational tool.

There's a real incredible variety of uses that we see in the park every single day.

- [Clay] The park has nearly three miles of trails ponds and creeks, and a pollinator garden.

- [Michael] It's a fairly small plot of land, but we pack it full of dozens and dozens of different native pollinating plant species that help attract bees, and butterflies, and hummingbirds.

- [Clay] There's a picnic shelter and welcome center, and a nature center for educational programs and community gatherings.

- [Michael] It's really got a great diversity of different environments and amenities for people to enjoy.

- [Clay] But like so many other parks in Western North Carolina, Helene shut it down.

The park closed for 26 days so workers could clear debris and repair trails.

- Where we're standing now in the north corner of the park, floods got about eight feet tall.

So we had a lot of damage to the trails, lot of damage to the trees.

Took us some time to recover, but we're on our way towards recovery.

I hope when people come to the park they're enjoying the beauty of the nature, they feel rested and relaxed, they use it as a place to connect with nature, to recharge in their personal lives.

[gentle music] - [Sharon] It's a pleasant place to come to.

It's just a pleasant way to unwind from the day or start the day.

When you walk in nature, it's refreshing, it's calming, and it's just a pure joy to be in it.

And it's a gem of the community.

- To get some fresh air at Flat Rock Park, head to 55 Highland Golf Drive in Flat Rock and they're open daily from dawn to dusk.

You can call to reserve any of their facilities at 828-697-8100, or check out a map at Flatrockparkfoundation.org.