Heading west along Turkiye's tourist coast

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After Glen and Steve depart we take another day at Serik, it's busier now as other Turkish Vans have arrived as it's the weekend. On Sunday night we make our way into Antalya here we start to see the big resort Hotels and speaking English, although they normally go for German first, is now more common place. Surprisingly for us there doesn't seem to be too many sandy beaches, mainly pebbly but I am sure the resort's pools are the favourite place for a dip!

We are here for one reason only some new batteries, we have with the lack of decent sunshine to charge using our solar panels been on a few occasions empty by the morning and with an electric drop down bed its an issue?!? On one occasion in Croatia it saw Graeme dismantle the mechanics so we could lift it manually, which we did, only stupidly to remember after the event that nothing in the van works electrically when the engine is running.....lesson learnt! So we have decided the batteries need to be replaced and head to the car repair area. It’s mad, we hardly fit the road and by fluke find a parking space. Graeme runs in and I am left guarding the van from the ensuing traffic, but tea is kindly delivered by the body repair shop next door. Two batteries later we are off to find a parking space, challenging?!! As they want the old batteries back and we get our deposit 1000 tl, or around £50 back, the only place we can find is a taxi rank on a busy set of traffic lights. Graeme like lighting has them swopped and then thankfully to the scrap metal merchant opposite the battery place we get parked up and get our refund.

We are thankful but relieved to leave and head to Goynuk Cayon, we will sleep in their car park and head up in the morning. We are in the park early and it's turquoise waters rush down the Canyons 4.5km length. The walk follows this to the end of the track where the water appears to just cascade down the high cliff's. This is also the entrance into the gorge for rafting or gorge exploration, there are signs of zip wiring along its length and whilst for those numerous hotel guests (Russian at this time of year) who want the thrill, the quiet and beauty of this gorge is enough for us. The weather here is settling in to some routine 3/4 days of sunshine, not warm bit also not wet and then 3/4 unpredictable weather including wind, heavy rain and thunder.

What we hadn't expected at our beach park up, back with Glen and Steve was an earthquake!! I missed it but Graeme awoke and the van rocked and the water in the tanks sloshing from side to side, a 5.3 mag and 64km off the coast!! Anyway we enjoy some sun and a swim.

As we move west, we have a meet up with my cousin but a few things to see en route. Phaselis apparently founded by colonists from Rhodes in the 7th century sits attractively on a peninsula of three bays. Legend says the founding colonists offered to buy the entire peninsular for a supply of barley bread or dried fish, the local in inhabitants chose the fish!! It became an important trading city most famously for Timber, Lilium (Lily) Oil, and Roses. The site sprawls across the peninsula with its agoras and it's amphitheatre. It was a very prosperous city and its inhabitants seemed to be more focused on trade than politics, ruled by many different leaders. Alexandra the Great who marched towards the city in 333bc was met at the gate and presented with a Golden Crown. In fact when the Roman Emperor Hadrian visited in 129ad a special arch and numerous new monuments and statutes were built. It really does seem that these inhabitants knew how to keep people on their side. The area is being reclaimed by some magnificent pines but it doesn't remove the magic of this historical site.

Our next stop is at Cirali and what a lovely village it is, probably the nicest we have seen to date, sat on a beautiful bay the beach hosts Turtles during breeding season, today there are not even people populating the beach. We continue to it's far end and head to Mount Chimaera supposedly this mountain has been burning for some 2500 years This phenomenon is caused by the methane deposits in the surrounding subsoil which, when they come into contact with the surface, generate spontaneous and perennial flames creating an unusual spectacle, the walk up is all up hill and only deflated by litter bins overflow along the path. We make it to the top and admire the views back to the ocean and the dancing flames. The following morning we walk the bay and at it's end up the river bed is Olympus another one of the ancient Lycian cities we admire this one from afar.

The sunshine is back as we head along the coast road, it affords us some lovely views but very few parking spots, yet again we are on the wrong side for the coast on this road too!! We overnight on Demre Beach it's raining again tomorrow so want to make the most of this sunshine so find a spot in the rocks and enjoy the sun's rays. As predicted in the morning it's hammering down but we make our way to the Myra ruins. We are waived frantically into a parking spot ‘all free’ he says ‘but maybe you buy some fresh orange juice after your visit?' The ruins at Myra are Lycian rock tombs and a huge amphitheatre, which would have seated around 13,000 of the population. We had on one of our other trips learnt that an amphitheatre was built to hold approx 10% of the cities population and we keep this fact to mind when we are clambering around this one! The Lycian tombs sit on the cliff fronts, they were always placed at the top of hills or on the cliffs as there was a belief that the dead would be transported to another world by a wing liked creature. We finish our visit just as the rain reappears and we head back to the van. I wave my lira and within minutes two beautiful cups of orange juice are forthcoming, it is so good we ask to buy some oranges which he says he'll pick when it stops raining, luckily he decides not too wait for the rain to stop and we leave with a good bag full.

We make our way further along the coast road and into Kas as we drive unintentionally through its main High Street, twice?!?! We realise again in any other time than winter this sort of place would be out of bounds for us, and the signs with 'no camping' in all the lay-by's is more evidence. Now don't get me wrong we do use campsites but they are usually out of town and if we are not going to use their facilities, we generally prefer our own, then I'd rather not use them. We decide we’ll chance the lay-by we as of yet have only had one night of the police banging on the door, and they were just asking if we were okay!! The road parkup allows us to easily wander into Kas in the morning, via another amphitheatre, this surprisingly is the only ocean facing one on this coastline. It's a lovely Bay with numerous islands off shore and we are now seeing more evidence we are in Tourist Turkiye with the traditional styled boats ready for charter or inevitably the booze cruises during the summer. Today the Bay is empty, some overwinter tourists are sitting in the local coffee shops admiring this beautiful view as do we.

Our last Lycian ancient city is to Xanthos, whilst you can get a bit 'ruin' or as I say rubble weary we pick our stops well, except Xanthos has many street dogs, all friendly, but it makes it impossible for Poppy to join us. We do however have a follower and he's a little cutie. The ancient city of Xanthos is built on the slopes of a hill and a path takes you through this fascinating landscape, this like the other places we have visited have not been rebuilt in anyway and it makes it more incredible that any of it is still standing.

But soon it's time to continue, our minds have been juggling with the decision regards our leaving date. Our issue is that having had our Covid jabs early on we will (with the new rules) be considered unvaccinated and that throws up all sorts of issues in our minds. There's only one option, leave before Feb 1st. Our vaccinations run out on the 30th of Jan, so ideally even before then and head quickly across Greece to get the Ferry to Italy and ultimately only one land border crossing to get home. Glen and Steve also now reviewing their departure date and so we are, alongside Glen now frantically searching ferries, paperwork and PCR testing sites.Today is the 9th so we have two weeks to get it sorted and make our way to the Border.

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