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Houses in the volcanic rock Goreme - Turkey

After a few great days in Gerome it was time to move on. Our plan was to travel through Kayseri, Sivas, Refahiye, Macka. We had an unknown schedule for the ferry from Trabzon to Sochi in Russia because we kept getting different reports on when it actually sailed. Some said there was a daily ferry, Others said that there was only two ferries a week. Unfortunately the internet was only partly useful and we had to actually get to the port to find out when we could buy our ticket (or phone and speak to someone who didn’t speak any english). Our first day back on the road after Cappadocia was an interesting yet trip through more volcanic area’s where the scenery was dry and dusty with beautiful mountains jutted out along the horizon from time to time. As we headed further north and east the number of European number plates we saw fell to an all time low. The towns became more conservative. The fuel was getting more expensive and the food was starting to change more. We started to get more people selling honey and dried fruit with the various types of melons. The cost of Petrol has gone from 2.89TL / Litre for 95 to 3.24TL and I suspect its not actually 95.. Our engines just don’t seem to be running quiet as well although its hard to tell given we have the extra weight of the tyres.

Our first night we had decided that we needed to wild camp again to save more money. Unfortunately after doing 16km along a dirt track looking for something we came up dry. We got back on the main road as it was starting to get late. In the end James found an old quarry area used when the road was being built. Behind that on the mountain was a place we could wild camp overlooking the patch work of fields in the valley below. Again we tried to refine the use of our mosquito net so that we could camp under the stars with no bugs attacking us.. It was particularly important at this site because it was heavily infested with mosquitoes and what appeared to be either midges or fruit flies..Heather became good friend with one as it bit her on her puffy eye.. Of course the relationship was doomed from the start when she killed it. Unfortunately the other mosquitoes didn’t take the hint and kept attacking. Luckily we could retreat to our mosquito net for a good nights sleep.

In the morning we woke to an early start at first light. Yet again the joys of camping under the stars is an early start. We got on the road early and planned to have breakfast on route. In the end we found a picnic spot about an hour and a half later. It was a great start to a perfect morning (both weather and scenery wise). One of the side notes that we have started to realise as we head further east is that the military presence is rapidly increasing. Just after our breakfast stop we got pulled over at a military road block where all the guards had sand bagged gun placements. They clearly took security very seriously in this area. The tension was immediately obvious and I have no idea what it’s all about. When we filled up with petrol after the road block the guys didn’t even really welcome us at all.. It was all very odd. After the road block we headed up even higher into mountains doing 3 major mountain crossings all above 2000 meters with some spectacular views . With each mountain crossing as we head north the scenery gets one shade greener. We can see across the tops of the mountains that there is some heavy rain clouds and we are heading straight for them. On our final mountain crossing we started to get covered with rain. On the downward slope the rain became stronger and stronger before we came to our intended destination Macka. The scenry on the way down the mountain was amazing. With huge forested slopes on the mountains and raging rivers in the valleys. Anyway our next post will be from Russia as we have our Ferry Tickets for tomorrow… Sochi here we come!!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 9:49 am and is filed under Adventure Motorcycling, Black Sea, Goreme, London to Sydney, motorcycle touring, Trabzon, Turkey, Wild Camping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.