Our Turkish Adventure – Chapter 2

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Say another ‘Goodbye’ to the ‘Bubble’ and its occupants we head down the coast to Akbuk to visit Derek (the beast’s previous owner).

As we are having lunch in a car park beside Akbuk harbour, waiting for Derek, we get a visit from an Irishman who spotted our Northern Ireland number plate and was curious. As luck would have it he is interested in buying a camper van and now has our email address, it’s a small world. We spend a very entertaining night with Derek then head back for Pamucak.

We had planned to visit Adaland, one of Europe’s Top 10 Water Parks (or so the sign said) on our way back but due to the lateness (or earliness) of the hour when we all got to bed (that Derek’s a bad influence) we postponed it until the next day.

Back at the Pamucak campsite the boys head off to do some fishing and meet a local fisherman who gives them some of the fish he has caught to try. We are quickly learning how generous Turkish people are.

The big day has arrived and our appointment with Adaland Water Park, after a slow start mum even plucks up the courage to try a few slides out! Calum has a ball and is reluctant to leave but on his second last slide lands badly on the water and hurts his back. We are all glad to be heading inland and away from the coast for a few days.

Arrived at Pamukkale late after a stressful journey including disappearing road signs (or the navigator got it wrong -remember that no blame culture),roadworks and closed roads with no indication of where you should go, driving along a stretch of not yet open motorway we only realised when we discovered we were behind a lorry with a load of stones to dump (nobody else seemed to care). We are ushered in by the owner of the Pamukkale Hotel and campsite (bit of a grand term more like a small piece of grass) and squeezed into our site, glad to be there.

Note to selves must stop driving through the centre of towns!

After that it was up to the rooftop restaurant for a welcome tea and our first view of the famous Travertines.


Got up early the next morning (and were glad to leave the owner kept prowling about creepy) and walked across the road to the entrance to the Travertines and were completely awestruck by the spectacle. The unique shelves and pools were formed when warm mineral water cooled and deposited calcium as it flowed over the cliff edge. We walked up and paddled in some of the pools (none of them were very warm) until we came to the top and got our first glimpse of the ruins of Hierapolis.

Originally built in 190BC the Romans built this spa city to take advantage of the water’s healing powers. The city was abandoned in 1334 after recurrent earthquakes. Even Calum who was ‘ruined out’ was impressed and we spent a satisfying couple of hours exploring the ruins before finishing our visit with a climb to the Roman Theatre.

This is the best so far.

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