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Planning our route - Troy

After troy we had planned to follow the coast road down to Hierapolis to see more archaeological sights.. Fortunately we decided to ditch that idea and instead focus our riding on heading somewhat directly to Ankara. In doing so we cut several hundred kilometres off our total journey distance. This was welcome news as the heat was forecast to increase along the coast… After a long break at a small cafe just outside of  Troy we had come up with a plan. That plan was to head towards Edremit and on to Kutahya. The plan was to now take 3 days to ride to Ankara where we would get our bikes serviced, receive some packages with some spare parts and organise some other bits and pieces before we embark on the next stage of our journey.

Finally cleaning the Bikes

The first part of our plan was to fill the bikes with fuel.. My bike was reporting on the trip computer that it had less than 2miles of range remaining. Heathers bike had a similar story with her fuel light showing as being on and had done so for about the last 40km… The only problem was there appeared to be no petrol stations along our route. Luckily just as we turned on to a more major road one appeared. We had some kids fill up our bikes while we relaxed for a while. Heather then realised that there was an area for washing cars.. We enquired how much it would cost to use… the response FREE… we jumped at the chance to wash our bikes for the first time since Austria… The thick coating of dust on the bikes made us look even more like hobo’s than usual… It was really just an excuse for us to play with the hose and cover ourselves in a nice dense spray of cool water… oops and clean the bikes.. For the first time we could actually see the plastics properly on both bikes.. The local kids at the service station also helped out in little bits and pieces which was nice. Very friendly.  Everyone loves the bikes the number of people waving at us as we pass has been amazing since Romania.

Shortly after our petrol, bike wash, wet t-shirt competition I was attacked by a wasp while riding the bike.. thankfully I didn’t crash the bike as it stung me several times on the neck. Each time it stung I could feel it go right up into my head.. I managed to pull over and kill the wasp.. Started riding again only to find the pain too unbearable and have to pull over again and put some cream on it… I think its time to start wearing my neck protector…. oh well maybe some other day when its not in the high 30’s… Heather only noticed that something was wrong when she heard a girly scream through the bike to bike communication system… The scenery as we followed along the road was fantastic. With beautiful winding roads and coastal views along large sections of the ride to Edremit.

After Edremit we headed inland heading towards Balikesir along the D230. It was a very nice ride… until we needed to find accommodation.. Unfortunately there was nothing for over 100km. Eventually we got to Balikesir and found a hotel… That was only after we rode along a dual carriage way multi-lane 10+cm deep gravel “highway” for about 20km only to find the road went absolutely nowhere so we had to do a u-turn and go back to Balikesir… We should have guessed when several turkish motorists drove past yelling stuff at us and doing u-turn gestures with their arms out the windows… who could have guessed what they actually meant??… At the end of this mammoth piece of engineering work the road literally stopped and turned into a shitty sand track. It would have cost a fortune to build the “road to nowhere”… we are still trying to guess why the hell the road exists. Maybe the surveyors screwed up and the road went in the wrong direction.. only to realise after they had spent all the money???

A Lake view from the D230 - Anatolia

After back tracking and getting to the hotel we had a relaxing meal and went to sleep early. The next day we wanted to get to Eskisehir which would be a longish day. This was something that worried us as the D230 had just disappeared into the “road to nowhere”…. After a quick investigation the following morning we found the sign post to Kutahya around a corner with no real road name signs. The road was terrible but the scenery was absolutely stunning. The road follows around the side of some mountains a river in the valley with small towns and farms dotted all along the side. The riding style quickly became dodge the oncoming trucks, while trying to avoid the sandy surface and potholes that could swallow your whole bike… It made for interesting yet very slow going. Despite the danger it was an experience I really enjoyed as it made the riding very intense. Every break was very welcome..

The view from our Mountain - Anatolia

After riding for a few hours we stopped for a Turkish bbq sis lunch.. wow it was awesome. And the bill was only 14TL (about £5)… By far the best Lunch I think we have had since we started this trip. It was just near Kutahya on the D230… Sorry forget the name of the place.. I’ll have to get the GPS references for anyone that is interested.  We then started to head on… At about 6pm we had been looking for a place to camp for some time.. Nothing was coming along.. After a while we saw a big hill start to emerge with some tree’s on it.. That looked like something that we needed to investigate. After exploring some random dirt trails we ended up finding a fantastic place to camp.. Being a beautiful evening we decided that we would camp under only the mosquito net.. Something that I have wanted to do for some time. It’s so much less stuffy in the heat and its awesome to look out at the stars. After an amazing nights sleep I managed to get this paparazzi photo of Heather still relaxing under the nets…

Wild Camping - Turkey

The view from our campsite Anatolia

After being in Istanbul for 8 nights it was time to move on. Our route from Istanbul was to head south west along the coast to the Dardanelles and Gallipoli. As we started to leave Istanbul the weather forecast appeared to be right, storms. As the storms came in..  we just missed them. We followed the sunshine south. The heat intensified as we got further away

Road to Gallipoli

from Istanbul’s storms.  It reached around 36c.. In the heat we found a place to camp just near the a “beach resort” and bar.. Finally we got our opportunity to have a swim in the sea.. Wow the water was warm but nothing like the 24c that at the Black sea.. If I had to guess it was probably around 20c. Either way it was a welcome change after riding in the heat. It was nice to get out of the water, have a beer and relax… After a beer we went back to where we had camped to find that there was a 100% fire ban.. That included all stoves due to a recent fire further down the coast. No Flameage caused us a few problems 1) no restaurant and 2) can’t cook.. Luckily the guy who ran the beach bar could cook us up some fast food.. In the end we had about 4 double gin and tonic’s while eating some quality chicken nuggets.. hmm healthy food… It was worth it.. until we had to get back into our stinking hot tent… In the process letting loads of bugs into the tent which all had a field day with Heather… we now call her James’ insect decoy. We ended up waking early completely dehydrated, with nothing to drink except a few mouth fulls of water… (Because in the drunken state the night before “we” (Heather) spilt it over James’ sleeping bag.. Oh well.. time to do the

View from a bar on the beach near Gallipoli

next bit of our ride to Gallipoli… This is where our second food saga began.. Unfortunately there was nothing open that served food at 9am in the morning.. a few places served beer but not food.. thinking that hair of the dog was probably a bad idea we just ordered some drinks from the restaurants and had a late… late.. late brunch while we waited for the ferry… Anyway back to Gallipoli.

Gallipoli has become somewhat of a “right of passage” for Aussies based on what we read in the aussie news in London..

Lone Pine Memorial - Gallipoli

Actually when we got there we didn’t see any Aussies.. It seemed to us that it was a melting pot of Turkish people going to see where the Turkish had one of their great military battles of the 20th Century. I am probably guessing that most of the Aussies who come only come around Anzac day.. Every other hotel or motel has some Aussie name like “Sydney Hotel” or “Sydney Aussie Place Hotel”… Most of them seemed from outside appearances to be pretty dodgy.. much like our camp site of the night before..  After our drinks of coke and water for breakfast we headed out to Lone Pine.

View on the Dirt Track to Lone Pine - Gallipoli

On the way up the dirt track from the coast I had just finished saying to Heather over the bike to bike radio’s that this dirt track was likely to be snake infested… bingo around the next corner a big black snake about 1.5 meters long trying to get out of the way of my bike as I rode past… Luckily I just missed it.. It still gave me a rude shock. Lone Pine is one of the key Australian battle memorials of the conflict. Something like 4000 Aussies died for the biggest advance that the ANZAC’s made in the entire conflict. It must have been pretty terrible as soon as they got to the top of lone pine there was yet another ridge higher only a few hundred meters further back.. Bob Hawke opened the memorial there while he was prime minister of Australia. The views from the memorial are fantastic along the coast with the brilliant blue waters.

View from Lone Pine - Gallipoli

After having a small break in the shade at Lone pine we headed back down to Anzac Cove. Having heard the stories about the beach landing its very difficult to comprehend how steep it actually is until you see it in the flesh.

Landscape of Anzac Cove - Gallipoli

The beach is pretty steep just by itself.. Then you take into account that there is yet another 200 meter slope just a short distance further.. It would have been a real shock for the troops.

Anzac Cove - Gallipoli

After our stay at Gallipoli we headed towards the Lunch, Ferry and onwards to Troy.. The Ferry crossing was smooth and quick. Costing us 8TL each for the motorcycles it was nice and cheap. The ride from the ferry to Troy was steaming hot and there is no accommodation  worth mentioning near Troy. It seems most people take Dolmus (shared taxi’s) from the town where the ferry crosses. A guy found us sitting in the shade looking for accommodation and asked us if we needed assistance. He directed us to a place where we could sleep/camp on the beach.. YAY..

Sunset over the Aegean Sea - Near Troy

That was where the fun began. He gave us directions to the beach and said that the French stayed there.. After riding for about 20km along a dirt track we decided to do a U-Turn… Right at that moment a car with French number plates drove past.. we decided to do an about turn and follow the car.. Thankfully we did and found a nice beach where we swam for a few hours to cool down in the late afternoon… We later pitched our tent on the beach… ahh Relaxation. Our second swim for the trip, This time in the Aegean Sea… The water was beautiful and warm. The sunset was fantastic. The following morning we woke early to go and sea Troy before the heat set in… We managed to get there around 9.  We ended up hanging around an official tour so we could hear the inside story. te he he.. After this we headed out by about 10:30 to a cafe near by so that we could plan the next section of our journey.

Ruins - Troy