Off to Cyprus

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The weather window looked great for the sail across to Cyprus – or should I say the motor sail as the winds were light and right behind us. You need to do an overnighter to Cyprus so that you arrive in daylight. Rod was hedging his bets about being able to check in at Paphos so we wanted to make sure we had enough daylight to push onto Limmersol as we needed to. As it turned out Paphos (Pafos) was fine as was Latsi further to the West as we later found out.

It was a very pleasant afternoon as we motored across at 6knots. We managed to get about an hours sail with our motors off before having to switch one back on as the wind died off.

As night fell, the lightening show started way off our port bow. Luckily it stayed off our port bow and didn’t get any closer. We were heading around the western side (the backside) of Cyprus on our way to Paphos. The three of us did 2 hour watches and that worked out really well as we each got two blocks of 4 hours sleep. It was great having Hugh on board helping out.

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He was doing really well right up to the point where we decided to put our yellow immigration flag and the new Cyprus flag up just before we got there. He got the old Turkish flag off okay and then proceeded to hold only one end of the flag halyard. Looking up he saw the other end. Oops! So out with the bosun’s chair and up I went to recover the other end. There wasn’t much breeze but it was still reasonably rocky and rolly up there.

With flags in place we pulled into Paphos harbour at about 8.30am. The marine police told us to go stern to just next to their patrol boat, which was pretty much the only space available in this small harbour. We had one go at anchoring and the anchor just pulled through the sludge on the bottom without holding. The second attempt was much better, felt like we’d hooked something down there – who knows – but it held well.

Then it was off to see the marine police, customs, immigration, the health authorities(!) and the harbour master. Customs took about an hour to drive over from Limmersol and whilst I waited I was treated to two brilliant cups of tea and honey from Dimitri, the police captain. I went back to the boat to wait for Customs and Dimitri brought back the passports, unstamped but with a boarding pass. Bit strange but all good to go. We asked Dimitri where a good lunch spot was and he later drove us there. Really nice of him.

Then it was off to explore Paphos, where the whole town is ENESCO Word Heritage listed.

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For photos of Paphos, click here.

Last Stop in Turkey

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The motor up to Alanya was pretty easy. Both the swell and wind had died down to nothing much at all. It was a good opportunity to get Hugh acquainted with La Mischief before our sea crossing to Cyprus. Hugh picked it up quite quickly, putting his past sailing experience to good use.

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We hugged the coast and made it to Alanya about 2pm. We decided to bypass the Marina, which is 3km out of town and head for the town harbour as that seemed much more accessible.

The approach to Alanya was spectacular, with a couple of castles and some extensive walls perched high above on the cliff’s edge. Further around we passed the Ottoman Shipyards and the Red Tower as we motored into the old harbour.DSC_0937

The harbour itself was quite big but quite full. We motored around looking for a spot and found a couple of harbour master staff who told us to go stern to near a work boat.

Safely berthed, we asked about getting an agent to help check us out of Turkey. A phonecall was made and all of a sudden it appeared we had a problem. It seemed his boss didn’t want us to stay in the old harbour and we should have gone to the marina as the harbour was only for commercial boats. Not to worry, if we paid him some cash, we could stay until 7am the next morning (ie. Before his boss got in!). The amount in cash started off at 50 euro and ended up at 30TL. I gave him 40TL so he saw it as a bit of a win – besides it was cheaper than the taxi ride from the marina to town, and off we went to explore Alanya.DSC_0979

We started at the very impressive Ottoman boatyards, which were right around the corner from the harbour, and then climbed up the cliffs to see the two castles, and the magnificent views down to Cleopatra Beach to the marina in the distance. Unfortunately by the time we got back down to the Red Fort it was closed. We could have done with more than an afternoon to check out Alanya but we needed to get going to Cyprus.

DSC_0929The good news was that the Rugby semi-final was about to start between Australia and Argentina. We wandered around the town and eventually found a bar where it was playing – in Dutch on some Euro sports channel. We’d watched the previous semi in Side with German commentary so we’d gotten used to it.

Next morning, fresh from Australia’s big win, we pulled anchor and headed off to the marina, where we needed to go to check out of Turkey. Bad news was that we needed to pay for a whole day even though we only stayed a couple of hours. And we had to drive back into town with the agent to the authorities who were – you guessed it – located at the old port. Oh well.

With our paperwork done and the necessary euros handed over; it was noon as we set off towards Paphos in Southern Cyprus, 110nm away.

For photos of Alanya, click here

The Wind Arrives… Followed By Hugh

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Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. It would have been great if we had been able to make Alanya that day so we could bunker down in a nice marina, whilst the very bad storm that was forecast passed by.

However, we didn’t quite make it.

We left Kemer in overcast conditions and pointed our nose across the bay to where Alanya lay 60nm away. The first part of the day was okay as we had a 20kt wind coming in at a 30-40 degree angle off our nose. We were making good mileage at 7kts with one engine on, lamenting the fact that we had to bypass Antalya, where we would have been able to get into the old port (conditions willing), but agreeing that we needed to get to our final Turkish destination before the weather set in.

But what’s the saying about the best laid plans? About one-third away across the wind had picked up to 40kts and was straight on our nose. We were lucky to make 4kts as the swell began to rise.

We were suddenly looking at a 1am arrival in Alanya, which meant 12 more hours of bashing into a crap sea.

We veered 40 degrees off the wind and headed towards land thinking the fetch would be less, and we may be able to creep along the coast, which should keep the fetch and the swell down. Interestingly, our course took us straight towards Side, 30nm from Alanya.

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Now we’d been to Side on our road trip and spied the small harbour there. We’d read a blog of a yacht that had been caught there in bad weather and it was not that encouraging. However there appeared to be a good anchorage outside the harbour that had protection from the Easterlies that were building.

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We got there about 3pm in the afternoon and poked our nose inside the small harbour to have a look. There was one other yacht in there, together with 5 or so gulets. We started to anchor next to the other yacht when Mustafa appeared and told us to both anchor and pick up a mooring in another spot, which we did. Mustafa turned out to be a fantastic guy and a godsend as he got us settled for the storm that was coming the next day.

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It was about this time that the second yacht up’ed anchor and moved along the coast to the river at Manavgat, something we should have considered as well. Rod suggests that Side is not the greatest place in a southerly blow.

That night it rained cats and dogs and quite a few other animals. The wind got up a bit as the thunderstorm hit – it swung round to you guessed it – the south. Wasn’t very pleasant but the mooring and the anchor held. Next day Mustafa came and helped us attach a second mooring and we also attached long lines to the shore from our front and middle cleats to help take the strain off our back cleats. We also moved away from the quay and used the dingy to pull us between the boat and the wall. We were all set for another few days of bad weather, inside the harbor. Luckily for us the wind blew fairly consistently from the East for the rest of our stay in Side, getting up to 48kts at times as the swell bent round into the harbour and caused La Mischief to surge back and forwards on its port mooring lines. The narrow harbor entrance was unprotected by a breakwater and with the swell rolling in there was no way we were going anywhere else even if we wanted to.

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Mustafa came round for drinks a couple of times and once brought fresh fish (besides being the harbor master, he also had a fishing boat and a tour boat). He came for lunch and cleaned, gutted and cooked his fish on the BBQ. Yum. He loved that his name was the same as Attaturk’s and had named his son Atta in his honor.

A few days into the storm, Hugh joined us. We’d met Hugh in Fethiye at the Rugby and he’d agreed to join us for the trip across to Cyprus. Hugh finished Uni a few years ago and is now a tour guide with Topdeck, having also spent time in South America. Not sure, what Hugh thought when he rolled up to find La Mischief riding out a pretty bad storm, but Hugh turned out to be calm and considered and took it all in his stride.

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With some time to kill, the three of us went off exploring Side. It turned out to be a great place to be stranded for a few days as its great ruins are some of the most notable in Asia Minor. They cover a large promontory where a wall and a moat separate it from the mainland. There are colossal ruins of a theatre complex, the largest in this part of the woods, built much like a Roman amphitheatre that relies on arches to support the sheer verticals. The Roman style was adopted because Side lacked a convenient hillside that could be hollowed out in the usual Greek fashion. The theatre is big, seating 15,000 – 20,000 people. The temple of Apollo, right on the waterfront, with its wonderful Greek columns was being blasted by the sea spray. There’s also a good museum and some other Greek ruins that impressed us. The town too was good to wander through, with numerous walking streets on the small peninsula. There were some great beaches to the West with a nice promenade along them that we looked at but didn’t swim in. It was here that Hugh found his Putin on a Bear and Angela Merkel in a revealing top T-Shirts. Both absolute classics.

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The second last morning we were there, a nasty thunderstorm came through and broke our port mooring. Luckily that was the last hoo-rar, and the wind quickly settled down after that. Not so for the swell as this took an extra day to abate.

Next day, we paid 200TL for a diver to repair the broken mooring, whilst Hugh took a dip to untangle the dingy painter from the prop, as it had somehow managed to get caught up in the last storm. The swell had settled enough for us to depart through the narrow entrance so then it was off to Alanya.

For photos of Side, click here.

Time to Head East

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With our new batteries installed, we headed out for a couple of days to test them out. We spent a day on anchor in Twelve Islands once again and got in a bit of bottom cleaning in the clear water.

Then we headed over to Fethiye to get in one last meal at Pasha Kebab, do some shopping and of course catch some Rugby.

Australia were playing Scotland in the quarters and we managed to find a good sports bar to watch it on. Whilst there we ran across Hugh, who later agreed to come sailing with us. There was also a group of sailors who regularly winter in Fethiye and we hooked up with them for dinner after the Rugby. One of them happened to be Chay Blyth, who amongst many other feats was the first person to sail around the world the “wrong” way – west to east. My first taste of Yachting royalty. It was a great dinner with lots of frivolity as they kept getting into Chay citing the only reason he sailed around the world was because he couldn’t moor. After dinner, most of them went off for more bar hopping, whilst we walked back to the marina with Chay for a cleansing ale at the marina bar. At this stage I was picking Chay’s brain for all it was worth until he finally got a bit sick of all my questions. During the course of our conversation, it also came up that he tried to buy some land in Stroud in NSW, where Dad was born. Small world.

Back at the boat I filled in Dee on who Chay was via the help of Wikipedia and next morning we headed back to Gocek to allow Sanli to check out the battery installation one last time. We also needed to fix a leaky gauge on our water maker.

At the bottom of Turkey, the coast stops going south and veers to the East. So that was the direction we headed as we made our way towards Alanya, where we would check out of Turkey. We ended up getting away from Gocek quite late and headed off to Kalkan 35nm away. We made it at 1am after a beautiful night sail along the coast.

DSC_0858Next day the weather was still good so we put in 70nm to a small bay called Cavus Limani, which turned out to be a pretty good choice. We had tried to get all the way around to Port Genovese but ran out of daylight, so we did a sail past in the morning.

DSC_0847Next morning we headed over to Phaselis to check out the very impressive Roman ruins there. We anchored in 3m of water and dingied ashore to look over the impressive ruins with tall aquaducts, a nice promenade and a small theatre. Getting back to La Mischief, we had a short swim before the wind quite suddenly swung around into the bay and strengthened. We got the anchor up as the swell started to roll into the bay, making things quite uncomfortable. The weather we had been expecting was starting to roll up. The sail around to Kemer was quite short, but by the time we got there it was blowing 40kts. We were glad we had put in some long days whilst the weather was good.DSC_0852The marina guys at Kemer were once again really helpful and jumped on board to help us tie up stern to. Then it was time to check out Kemer. The first stop was the marina bar, which was quite lively last year in June when I was there. Not this time – in late October – it was closed and the marina, although quite full was dead. Bummer! I was looking forward to the social life at Kemer.

We then hit the town and ended up going winter coat shopping. They were into their last week or two of a very bad season and the shop keepers were willing to take just about anything to get some cash in the door. By the end of the night Dee and I each had a new winter coat ready for when we come back for a European winter.

Next morning, it was up early to check the weather and see where we would head. Our original plan saw us going to Antalya and then onto Alanya, but there was some pretty bad weather coming our way the next day so we decided to make a run for it straight to Alanya, whilst the weather was still okayish.

New Batteries At Last

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La Mischief came with four 120AH Gel Batteries that were failing fast. It was disappointing to see that they lasted less than 3 years, but the first winter in Yacht Marine caused some issues. And 480AH in total was a bit undersized as La Mischief is somewhat hungry on the electricity front, often chewing through 25A of juice at times. I had increased the solar panels to 1000W to try and compensate but I was fighting a losing battle.

After much research, I decided it was time for some Lithium batteries, LiFePO4 to be exact. I settled on four 90AH Victron LiFePO4 batteries, which we calculated to be just enough as Lithiums can be run down to 20% quite comfortably. Having now installed them, I’m still not entirely convinced  this is enough as I’m finding I still have to run the genset in the morning for 30 minutes.  its is however going into winter so the solars don’t get as much of a run as they used to. Time will tell.

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Fitting Lithium batteries is not just a simple matter of swapping out the old Gels with the new Lithiums. Sanli and his helpers spent three days completing the job, 15 hours in total. Luckily, we managed to find a spot at the publicly owned Town Marina, rather than having to pull into Skopea Marina, which is the least expensive of the very expensive private marinas in town. They weren’t keen on Cats at the Town Marina, but Dee managed to sweet talk them into letting us have a berth.

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The somewhat complex charging architecture.

The Lithiums need their own Battery Management System (BMS), that controls the batteries as well as the Victron chargers and some relays to stop over charging and over loading. This BMS is a single point of failure so at some stage, I will need to pick up a spare.

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The various relays

The Victron Quattro Inverter/Charger needed a firmware upgrade to work with the BMS as the BMS now controls it’s charging behaviour, as well as shutting the Invertor down if the batteries get low.

The Victron Bluesolar 70/150 Charger also needed a firmware upgrade but to do this we needed a very expensive VE.Direct to USB interface cable (part number ASS030530000 for my future reference) that Sanli didn’t have. I will need to pick up in Oz. With the right firmware in place, the BMS controls the Bluesolar charger, but for the Victron rep in Turkey recommended that we stick a BMS controlled relay in to control the charging.

Battery monitoring is also an issue. I now have a Victron BMV700 battery monitor and associated shunt, together with a new Victron Colour Control GX Monitor. This Colour Control gets its information from the Battery Monitor and the Quattro. With the firmware update on the Blue Solar unit, I will be able to get the solar panel input on this unit as well.

However, I’m still not comfortable with my monitoring setup. The State of Charge can be showing 100% and I still have 150A going into the batteries. In the old days, I could use the Voltage of the batteries as a fairly good indication of their SOC but not with the Lithiums. They keep their charge high right up to when they start to go flat. I’ve been through the BMV700 manual and played around with the Peukert exponent and the Charging Efficiency factor as per the manual but still no luck getting the SOC to make sense.

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BMS and Mains Disconnect

The other outstanding item I need to get going is the wireless interface to Victron’s VRM Portal. From here, I can get email alerts and monitor the whole setup from my phone using Victron’s android app. I bought a Wifi dongle in Fethiye, but the CCGX didn’t recognize it so I need to get the Victron dongle. I will wait to I get back to Perth to pick this up.

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The good news was I didn’t need to change the existing (non-Victron) charging components from Christec and Mastervolt. All I needed to do was to place some BMS controlled relays between them and the new batteries, and the BMS took care of regulating the voltages.

Because of the complexities of the new system, I took Allan’s wise words of advice and left a couple of my old batteries in place, together with a battery switch so that in the event of a failure, I can simply switch across to the old batteries until I can sort out what the problem is, rather than having alarms going off everywhere in the middle of a night passage with no power. A very sensible idea. Allan’s been a great help as he has installed Lithiums on Camelot and I’ve been lucky to pick his considerable brain power in this area as he’s very much in love with his battery set-up.

After a few weeks cruising I’m starting to get my head around the new system. One thing I’m not sure about is the Load Disconnect function of the BMS. My understanding is that the BMS will automatically disconnect the Victron Cyrix Li-Load  Relay when a cell’s voltage drops below 2.8V. At one stage, I saw the voltage of the batteries drop to 11.9V, which worries me as I would have thought the Li-Load relay would have permanently tripped by then. The BMS should also shut down the inverter at the same time, but this was still running. Further investigation is required. In the meantime, I’ve set a low voltage alarm at 12.5V on the BMV700 battery monitor, so I can start the genie if I need to. Victron and Allan – expect a phonecall.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

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Our cunning plan to get back from our road trip and get the batteries installed hit a few snags. Firstly we hadn’t banked on Kurban Bayrami – the “Feast of Sacrifice”. Our batteries had arrived in Turkey but were going nowhere until they got through Customs. This proved to be an issue as public servants got an extra two days holiday on top of the four that the rest of the population got to celebrate this great festival of Islam. So off we went cruising whilst we waited. This plan turned out to be also problematic as all the bays were filled with Turkish holiday makers on their boats. Never the less we managed to find some space to anchor as we checked out the wonderful cruising grounds the Gulet cruises call “Twelve Islands”.

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We then made our way up to Marmaris and spent a few days there checking out all the beautiful bays we hadn’t anchored in last time as well as the town. Then we made our way out of the bay and around the corner to Turunc, where we were delighted to see Paul and Tess on Paradise. We first met in Atlantic Spain and caught up with each other a few times before we went our separate ways in the Balearics two years ago. It was nice to catch up and enjoy some meals and drinks together again.

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On the way back to Gocek, we stopped in Ekincik Bay and went around to the entrance of Dalyan River to check out the nice beach there. We had thought about spending the night there but it was quite exposed and when it started to get a bit rolly so we thought better of it and headed back to Ekincik.

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We then headed back to Gocek to find that the batteries had arrived but Victron hadn’t provided Sanli with the necessary drawings they had promised. Everyone was getting hung up on the Mastervolt Alpha Pro chargers I had on the alternators. So Sanli, bless his heart, hopped on a plane to the Istanbul Boat Show to get things sorted. I also took the opportunity to pick Allan’s brain and took his advice to add a selector switch to a couple of the old batteries as an emergency fall back.

Whilst all this was being sorted out we headed into town to watch the AFL Grand Final with Ross, Ros, John and Leonie from Gone With the Wind 2, a Lagoon 620 with a Fremantle registration. It’s impossible to find the AFL on TV in a Turkish bar so we reverted to my subscription of WatchAFL.com on my laptop over breakfast. At least the breakfast was good as we watched the Hawthorn machine ruthlessly win yet another AFL premiership.

At least the rugby was on at a sportsbar, which also happened to double up as a bowling alley of all things. It was run by a nice Scottish lady who was right into her rugby, so we managed to watch a few great games of world cup with the guys from Gone With The Wind.

To fill in more time, we organised  a paragliding adventure at Oludeniz. It turned out to be so much fun.   Paragliding from the top of Mt Bagadag down to the coast at Oludeniz is said to be the best coastal paragliding spot in the world – who am I to disagree.

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Paragliding from the top of Mt Bagadag down to the coast at Oludeniz

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The drive up the mountain on a narrow road was quite scary. In fact, it turned out to be much more scary than jumping off the top of the mountain attached to my pilot. The view from way up there was spectacular, looking straight down on the Blue Lagoon and out to St Nicolas Island. I got a turn at flying as we cruised around with about 20-30 other paragliders. We landed next to the beach on a walk-way amongst all the tourists walking in front of the Oludeniz shops and restaurants.

After the excitement of the paragliding, we hopped back in our Hire Car and drove over to Kalakoy, which gained a certain amount of fame from a great book called “Birds Without Wings”. Kalakoy is a deserted town, dating back to 1923 when all the Christians were sent across to Greece, in exchange for all the Muslims in Greece, just after the Turks had won their war against the invading Greek Army. It was great to wander this deserted town, after just having read the book.

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Bird Whistle straight out of Birds Without Wings
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The Ghost Town of Kalakoy

Playing over, it was time to head back to Gocek for our new batteries.

For photos of Marmaris click here

For photos of paragliding, click here 

Road Trip – Part Trois

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With a big tick in the “We’ve Been To Cappadocia” Box, it was time to hit the road. And the road we hit was the famous old Silk Road that passed through Cappadocia on its way to Konya. There were Caravanserai every 30-40km, roughly the distance your average Camel could cover in a day. We stopped at a couple of impressive Caravanserai, with their big courtyards and bedrooms around the sides on our way back to Konya.

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DSC_0576On the way to Konya we also decided to veer off the main highway and head out to the World Heritage site of Catalhoyuk, where they have dug up a whole Neolithic Town. Theres a small museum and a couple of giant sheds covering two extensive archaeological excavations, but as far as building something interesting to look at the Neolithics were way behind the Romans and Greeks.

We arrived in Konya at about 5pm and went straight to the Restaurant where we had the best Lamb Tandir Kebab. This time there was no holding back as we ordered 300gm each and enjoyed every mouthful of it.

Back on the road again, our plan was to head towards the Taurus Mountains and stop for the night after an hour or two. We got to Seydişehir thinking that it’s a reasonable enough size to have a decent hotel or two. However nothing looked promising and so we decided to hit the road again.

As we headed up the Taurus Mountains the rain started again and the towns thinned out. Tripadvisor was telling us there was a reasonable hotel at Akseki so that’s where we headed. Never believe what you read on the internet but at least it was a bed for the night.

Next day we headed down the mountains to the sea, popping out just East of Side. We drove in there for a quick look at the harbour and a coffee. Decided the ruins and the cute seaside town required further exploration by boat and pushed on.

Next stop was Aspendos, known for its Amphitheatre, which is one of the best from the Roman world. Attaturk decided it would be done up and used for live performances – something not everyone agreed with at the time but I must say it makes for a spectacular setting. Other than a few nice Aquaducts (what have the Romans ever done for us?) , it was all about the Amphitheatre and not much else.

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Whilst we were in a ancient ruins state of mind we decided to check out Perge as well .Perge is where Apollonius of Perge hung out, a bit of a Grecian mathematical hero of the times. Evidently Kepler hooked into his work when Perge was rediscovered during the Renaissance and this helped Kepler develop his now famous laws of planetary motion. Well there you go. Perge is chockers full of ruins – city walls, sports stadiums, marketplaces, the full box and dice.

Then it was time for lunch and a swim at one of Antalya’s many beaches. Antalya’s a big, big city and it took us a while to drive through it. After the swim we headed to the old town and walked down to the old port. In season, it’s almost impossible to get a berth here but we intend to come back out of season and see a bit more of Antalya.

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It was getting late in the afternoon as we left Antalya and headed towards Olympos. We wanted to see the famous Chimaera and the best place to stay to do this is Cirali Beach, just up from Olympos.

We made it there just before dark and did our usual canvassing of hotels before picking a nice one at a bargain price. This gave us just enough time for swim and a bottle and a swim on the beach before heading off to dinner at one of the beachside restaurants. This took us all the way to 10pm when we drove to the carpark at the bottom of the walk to the Chimeara and set off along the 2km walk in the dark – along with quite a few others.

DSC_0669Homer described the chimaera as a fire breathing monster who was slain by a local Greek hero; and the fire that comes out of the rocks is the eternal breath of the monster. Hate to disappoint but there are no monsters, just a continual stream of methane gas coming out of several spots in the rocks. We wandered around looking at all the spot fires before settling on one to roast our marshmellows. The Turks had a go at trying to claim the Olympic Torch relay originally came from Chimaera but they got shot down pretty quickly. Still,, it was pretty damn cool!

Next day, it was time to drive back to La Mischief after nearly 2 weeks on the road. On the way back we called into Finike and caught up with Sherrie and Shaun on their Catana, who we last saw in Santorini. We also called into Demre and saw the Church of St Nicolas, which was buried below ground until it was escavated, and Myra which is another A Grade set of ruins.

Then it was back to Kas where La Mischief was waiting and off to Smiley’s Restaurant to thank him for looking after her.

For photos of our Road Trip, click here.

Cappadocia – Apologies in Advance for the Verbal Diorrhea

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By the time we were on our way to Cappadocia, it seemed everyone had got there before us. Which was great for us as we’d plucked everyone’s brains and got a bit of an idea as to how we would tackle one of the world’s most fascinating places. You can’t find Cappadocia on a map – it a sort of region bound together with a whimsical fairytale landscape that seems to have been transported there from the moon. It’s both odd and beautiful at the same time with its towering boulders and honeycombed hills where erosion has formed caves, clefts, pinnacles, “fairy chimneys” and sensuous folds in the soft volcanic rock. All this is wrapped up in some fascinating history. People have long utilised Cappadoccia’s soft rocks, seeking shelter underground and leaving the countryside scattered with fascinating troglodyte-style architecture.

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Firstly it was the Hittites but really the region is famous for the early Christians that settled in these caves and underground cities. Cappadocia even gets a mention in the Bible (evidently).

We started our Cappodocia adventure by driving to Goreme and going on a bit of a hotel selection expedition. We wanted a cave room with a view and a pool. We quickly gave up on the pool as they tended to be indoor or very small. After much walking around we settled on Lalezar Hotel, which had been recommended to us by a couple of different friends. We managed to negotiate the top floor suite for 150TL a night. Was a really spacious cave with a great private balcony out the front overlooking Goreme. Perfect.

Next morning, we were up early to check out the 200 or so balloons as they came past. We watched a few go by from our balcony and then headed up the top of the hill behind the town to get a really good look. 200 balloons – that’s probably 2000-3000 people a day, every day over peak time. What a sight.

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After breakfast, we hooked up with Red Dot (real name Vedat), a Uni student in Cyprus who was helping out at the Hotel (which his Dad owned) and went exploring. Red Dot acted as our guide as we started to get a handle on Cappadocia. First stop was Cavusin, where Red Dot took us on a windy narrow road up to a lookout behind the town with some cool churches, cave houses and a cave hotel. After a quick stop to look out over the top of Rose Valley, we headed across to Love Valley. Looking down on all the phallic symbols, we got the gist of the name. The Turkish are evidently far less subtle. Hopping back in the car, we drove into Love Valley and had a walk around the bottom of the phallic playground.

At this stage we were getting hungry so we headed for Red Dot’s favourite restaurant in Avanos. Lunched up, we then headed over to Monk’s Valley in Pasabag. Pasabag valley contains some of the most striking fairy chimneys in Cappadocia with twin and even triple rock caps. Whilst perusing the chimneys, we also found out this is where Red Dot used to take his girlfriend for some after hours activities.

Our final stop of the day was Uçhisar, with its natural rock citadel forming the tallest point in Cappadocia, visible from just about everywhere we had driven. Interestingly enough, Rd Dot hadn’t been up the castle before so we treated him to something new.

That was just about enough for Day 1 so we headed back and booked our balloon trip for the next morning. We checked out a few companies and settled on one Red Dot had recommended. The trick is to get one with a medium-sized basket (about 12 people) rather than the 25 people baskets. It cost us a bit of dough – 250 Euros from memory, but it was my first time in a balloon and what a way to start.

There’s two takeoff times, the first just before dawn and the second, just after it. We were on the second and we took off just behind the Zelve Outdoor Museum, which we got a great look at from the air as we flew low over it.

From there we popped out over the range and looked down into firstly Red Valley and then Rose Valley. We then headed over to Love Valley and our captain expertly dropped us down inside the valley amongst the giant phallic symbols. After 50 minutes it was time to land and our pilot amazingly used a small valley to get back (against what was a light breeze higher up) to our landing spot. After the obligatory champagnes, it was back to our hotel in time for breakfast. What an experience.

Then it was time for more exploring. We took off down the road to Goreme Open Air Museum.

Yet another of Turkey’s Unesco World Heritage Sites (one of the two oldest in Turkey) that we visited on our Road Trip, the Göreme Open-Air Museum is a walk through an important Byzantine settlement that contains the finest of the rock-cut churches, with beautiful frescoes still showing after all these years. It was pretty impressive as we walked through and in a cluster of monastic Byzantine artistry with its rock-cut churches, chapels and monasteries. As Michael said (having been there a year before), it was a walk through early Christian history.

On the way back to the car park we passed through a cluster of tourist shops and of course the guy peddling the expensive camel ride. What started with Dee wanting to have her photo patting the camels became a sit on the camel followed by a ride on the camels.

With 20 million camel shots now on my camera’s memory card, we got back in the car and headed for Ortahisar Castle. Not quite as impressive as the one at Uchisar, it was still up there on the Morgan scale of Castles and worth a look. What’s even better was the wine cave at its base. Cappadocia looks barren but the soil is quite productive and it is a major wine growing area in Turkey.

Wine caves visited, contents sampled and purchase made, it was off to Urgup. Nothing really to report here – pleasant little town with some possibilities but we didn’t stop and explore much after calling in at the tourist bureau and having lunch in town.

Onwards and upwards it was to the Zelve Open-Air Museum, which once housed one of the largest Christian and Muslim communities in the region. We walked through this amazing cave town, honeycombed with dwellings, churches and mosques. The Christians were forced to leave the Valley because of the exchange of minorities between Greece and Turkey in 1924, and the Muslims were forced to evacuate the Valley in the 50’s when life became dangerous due to risk of erosion.

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Back in Goreme, we enjoyed a bottle of wine on our balcony watching the sun go down, it was time to check out Topdeck Cave Restaurant, the best of Goreme’s restaurants according to Tripadvisor and who were we to argue with them. The name’s a bit confusing as it is in a small cave (tick) and the guy who owns it has a nickname of “Topdeck” from his early days of driving buses in London. It turned out to be a great restaurant, with beautiful food and great staff. We finished off the night by drinking some Cappadocia red with Red Dot and a group of his University law friends from Izmir who had come to visit – why not when your friend’s dad owns a hotel.

Next day, it was time to head underground. Cappadocia has 36 underground cave-cities, that were started way back in Hittite times, and expanded over the centuries as various marauders came through in search of captives and plunder. At 85m deep, the one is in Derinkuyu is the deepest of them all and that’s where we headed.DSC_0395

It took us 30 minute to drive and unfortunately we got there a bit late to avoid the hordes. So it was a bit claustrophobic down there with all those people. But very interesting as we saw stables, cellars, storage rooms, refectories, churches, wineries and school rooms.

Descending vertical staircases we saw the deep ventilation shafts that also doubled as wells. Really interesting were the carefully balanced moving stone doors, resembling mill stones, which could quickly block the corridors in the event of an attack.

Since we were on a bit of a road trip on our road trip, we decided to keep going and visit Ihlara Valley. We parked the car and descended the 100m into the canyon. It was a nice walk along the side of the river, past all the churches carved into the rocks. We stopped at a cute little café for fresh OJ with day beds built out across the stream itself – very Turkish.

Our last stop of the day was the Sunset Stop at the top of Rose Valley. We got there a bit before sunset so we walked down and had a look at the top of Rose Valley, before heading up top and checking out the sunset.

Next day we were checking out, but before we did we wanted to do a walk in
Rose Valley. After hunting around to see how close we could park the car we found that “not that close” was the answer. So it took us 15 minutes to get into the Valley proper. It was well worth the walk and it’s a pity we didn’t have more time. We met a lot of walkers doing it one way from Goreme to where we’d parked the car – obviously with a tour that picked them up at the other end. But for us it was “backtrack time” as it was time to pick up our luggage from the hotel and leave the fairy tale land of Cappadocia.

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For more photos of Cappadocia click here

 

Road Trip – Part Deux

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Ankara is the capital of Turkey, but except for two or three must see items, its pretty much the Canberra of Turkey.


 

Our first impression driving into Ankara was just how big it was. Negotiating the traffic via Google Maps was challenging, and after a few wrong turns we made it to Attaturk’s Mausoleum in Anıtkabir. Attaturk is a bit of a hero of mine and it was great to wander through the extensive museum and see how one man’s will and determination created a whole modern nation, including a new alphabet and written language, surnames, a legal framework and a modern education system plus a heap of other stuff. They don’t call him the Father of Turkey for nothing. Definitely a must see.

Our second destination was the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations – also a very impressive museum, impressive enough to have won the European Museum of the Year. The Museum uses the catch phase “Turkey – The Biggest Outdoor Museum in the World”, with which we would have to agree. If you haven’t been to Turkey you should definitely do yourself a favour! The museum was mostly old stuff – you know – 3000 years ago or so; plus a little bit of much newer stuff from the days of Alexander the Great and the Romans. Anatolia was one of the cradles of early civilization and the museum was chocker block full of amazing Hittite statues, wall friezes and pottery. Great museum. The museum was also just below the old castle; so we stretched our legs and headed upwards. On the Morgan scale of Castles, this one rated a “‘Medium” – but we are getting picky these days. We walked along the castle ramparts and got a great view of Ankara stretching out into the distance.

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Our visit to Ankara was a hit and run exercise and we were soon on our way to Safranbolu, a wonderfully preserved traditional Ottoman village. It was a very interesting drive through the rolling hills as we continued to make our way North. The drive into Safranbolu is equally as impressive as you drop down into the valley where it is situated. We had the choice of quite a few quaint hotels, old stone mansions that have been turned into boutique hotels. The old caravanserai from the 14th century has also been turned into a very impressive hotel. From the 13th century to the advent of the railway in the early 20th century, Safranbolu was an important caravan station on the main trade route from the Orient to the West. Nowadays, Safranbolu is a UNESCO World Heritage site with the Old Mosque, Old Bath and Süleyman Pasha Medrese all surviving since 1322. The streets come alive at night with small traders and restaurants adding lots of colour and movement. Another highlight of our road trip and well worth the effort to go up there.

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That ended up being as far north as we got. It was time to head towards Cappadocia – but first we needed to get a little Bronze Age action along the way. So we headed for Hattusa, the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire. It was a long drive, through some thunderstorms to Boğazkale, where we camped the night at a great little Hotel with virtually no other guests. Had a great chat to the owner over a bottle of red and dinner and called it a night.

Next morning, we headed into the museum in Boğazkale, where a lot of the bits and bobs from Hattusa are displayed. There’s a couple of very impressive stone sphinxes, originally found at the southern gate in Hattusa – one of which was returned from Germany in 2011, after much postering and numerous requests. Having got a bit of a feel for the place from the museum, we hopped into the car and drove to the actual archaeological site of Hattusa. The first thing you see is a very impressive fort that formed part of the wall that went around the whole of Hattusa, courtesy of some fairly good slave power I imagine. Hattusa is a huge site, so you actually have to drive around it and see it all. There’s an impressive tunnel that goes quite a way under the city wall and lots of remnants of buildings that show the extent of the place. We finished off our visit to Hattusa with a short trip north to the rock sanctuary of Yazılıkaya, with its interesting and very old rock carvings.

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With our knowledge of the Hittite civilisation greatly enhanced, it was time to head south east towards the famous and mythical area of Capadoccia.

For photos of our Road Trip click here.

RoadTrip – Part 1

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After leaving Randy and Toma we’d headed up to Gocek to get our Christec battery chargers removed and sent back to France for reprogramming, ready for when our newly ordered Victron Lithium (LIFePO4) batteries arrived to Sanli from Modayacht. The house batteries that Lagoon supplied weren’t very good and their days were rapidly coming to an end. The cunning plan was to get Sanli to remove the Christec units and send them off, whilst at the same time ordering all the parts from Victron, whilst we fill in the time waiting with a nice little roadtrip.

On the way to Gocek by boat, we had called into Kalkan and saw Peter, an American guy who we met in Kas and who lives in the hills behind Kalkan. He’s been a textile trader in Turkey and had lots of suggestions on where we should go. He also invited us to stay the night at his beautiful house just outside a little village with great views down to the coast near Kalkan. We swam in his lovely pool and got to know his dogs. He then cooked us a great meal whilst we enjoyed the view. Next day we took him out sailing – only for the day as he had some dog business to attend to – he’d been looking after some strays and the lady from the dog refuge was coming to see him.

Boats are a great way to see a country, but sometimes its great to get a hire car and check out what’s beyond the coast. As you can guess, we organized to leave La Mischief under the watchful eye of Smiley in Kas for the great bargain of 70TL a night. We had to go stern to the wall with our anchor right over the other side of the harbour, well away from the chain that ran down the middle of the harbour. In this case, the chain was a godsend as it allowed us to take a belts and braces approach and pay 100TL to a diver to attach a rope around this chain and back to the boat. La Mischief was going nowhere whilst we were away.

Smiley also organised our hire car for 90TL a day – another bargain. By the time we’d finished getting the diver organised, it was into the afternoon as we headed towards Kalkan.

With our map marked up with a combination of Peter’s suggestions, lonely planet recommendations and stuff off the net, we headed inland. It was a great drive through some interesting scenery. As it started to get towards dark, we found ourselves not far from Sagalassos. Lonely Planet describes it as “the very antithesis of the ‘Ephesus experience’, Sagalassos is rarely troubled by tour buses or crowds; sometimes the visiting archaeologists or sheep wandering the slopes outnumber tourists”. Sounded like a visit.

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So off we headed hoping to find somewhere to stay on approach. We drove through one small town that didn’t have a hotel in sight. I was pessimistic as we drove through the countryside, but Dee as usual was upbeat and sure enough there was a sign that said “ Sagalassos Hotel and Spa – 200m ahead. Bingo – 5 star hotel for about $70 a night, which we nearly had all to ourselves.

After enjoying a bit of luxury, it was off up the top of the mountain to check out ancient Sagalassos, one of the Med’s largest archaeological projects. As promised, we pretty much had the place to ourselves as we wandered around some pretty impressive ancient ruins. It still had running water, which flowed through the ancient Roman water fountains in the square. Nice.

Back in the car we continued to head inland through the lakes district. Next stop was a town called Eğirdir on a lake called Eğirdir. It was on the must see list but after stopping and having a stroll around we decided we needed a new must see list. Nothing to write home about.

DSC_0593Next stop was one we would have never have got to if it hadn’t been for Peter suggesting we go there. It was the Hittite moment at Eflatunpınar, which means  “lilac coloured spring”. The spring have been directed into a rectangular pond with a high wall of reliefs with the Storm God and the Sun Goddess with winged sun-disks above each. The most amazing thing about this is that it was built 3000 years ago, well before the Greek empire came into existence.

DSC_0602next stop – Beyşehir on lake Beyşehir was very impressive, mainly due to an extremely old wooden mosque. Dee got accosted by a lovely old lady who helped us cover up appropriately so we could go in and marvel at the wood work.

The last stop of the day was Konya, a religious centre and home of the whirling dervishes. We got there at 5pm and drove through the centre of the city, marveling at the very impressive Mevlâna Museum, which is the mausoleum of Mevlâna Jelaleddin Rumî. Rumi is one of the world’s most read poets. The Mevlâna Museum is Turkey’s second most-visited tourist attraction after the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Rumi was a mystic, a Sufi saint who loved all religions, and whose own religion was love.

Konya was the capital of the Seljuk Turkish Sultanate of Rum. The Seljuks built numerous caravansarays along the Silk Road between Cappadocia and Konya, and beyond. Seljuk architecture is outstanding, and the Mevlâna Museum was a very impressive example of this architecture.

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Konya is also the place to get Tandoor Lamb, with a night view of the stunning Mevlâna Museum and joining Mosque. 13 hours of slow roasting produced the best lamb I have ever tasted. It was so good , we returned later on the way back from our road trip and pigged out on 300gms each.

As luck world have it, we rolled up on a Thursday, which is when the Whirling Dervishes put on a free display. These followers of Rumi lose themselves in trance and dance, spinning like tops for hours on end. There’s lots of tourist destinations throughout Turkey where you can go and see the Whirling Dervishes but Konya is where they come from and the best spot to see them by a country mile. The Sema ceremony, which they perform is really a prayer, totally memorising with 22 Dervishes whirling away under the direction of their leader, backed by a singer and an accompanying band of traditional musicians. The performance itself is the closest a tourist can get to watching a genuine Whirling Dervishes performance.

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Next morning it was off North to Ankara.

For photos of the road trip click here.

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