Lycian Way Day 12: Cakil Beach to a km north of Beloren

Cakil Beach to a km north of Beloren

Starting km: 222

Finishing km: 245

Distance walked: 23km

We were up super early today, first ones out of the campsite at around 06:30.  It was a pleasant walk down the coast to Cayagzi Beach. Accompanying us was a cute small to medium sized dog that had come in with a small group right before sunset the previous day.  I'd originally thought he was their dog, but it quickly became apparent that, although wearing a collar (but not a tag) he didn't belong to anyone at the camp.

At the beach we took a bit of a detour off the official route.  First to walk across the nice sandy beach, then to visit Adrianke, the port that served the Lycian/Roman city of Myra to the north.  We wandered in amongst the ruins, which got steadily more impressive until we arrived at the heavily (over) restored granary which had been turned into a museum.  We walked out the front gate (dog in tow, after having used Sarah's walking stick to scare off a couple of other dogs that had attacked it) just as some of the site staff were collecting eggs from the resident hens and others were having their morning team meeting.

The final, and primary reason we'd taken a detour was so that we could walk through the city of Demre to do a food resupply before heading up into the mountains for a few days.  We had a bit of a scare when we passed the city's big Republic Day celebrations outside town. We stopped for the playing of last post and the national anthem (as, apparently, everyone in the country does).  But despite the holiday, most shops were open, and we left town to the north fully restocked. With, of course, dog in tow.

We finally left him behind when we visited the archaeological site of Myra.  We didn't even go into the grounds, which consist primarily of a large number of tombs spectacularly carved into cliffsdes (which you couldn't get very close to inside the site) and a theatre (which we've seen so many of recently that it didn't feel like we were really missing out on).  Anyhow, I think our dog was getting tired, hot, hungry and thirsty. And having realized we weren't going to feed him, decided to stick where there was water, shade, lots of people and at least one other friendly dog. I'm happy we parted ways before we headed up into the mountains, or we would have felt compelled to look after it.  It was clearly a people-dog, sitting nicely and actually seeming to listen to commands to not bother us (or our food) while we ate breakfast. I doubt it'll find its original family, but I do hope it finds a nice new one.

As for us and the mountains, after a rough start to the climb behind some greenhouses and over a narrow, barely identifiable trail covered in dead leaves and branches, we found ourselves on a very nice, relatively gentle trail up a valley.

Three hours or so (including lunch break) brought us to the village of Beloren with its sheep welcoming committee (complete with honourary goat) and very loud chicken noises.

A further forty minutes brought us to our small campsite. At 950m, it was a world away from our morning by the sea, and from where we could just hear, but couldn't see, life in the town down below.

Other quick concluding notes: We saw several camels today, both show camels in town, and a couple others in little barns on the route.  Also, we're back in pomegranate country. We picked three from wild (or at least feral) trees along the roadside. Demre is the birthplace of St. Nicholas, so has a lot of eastern European tourists and Santa Claus on the logo of the city council.

Lycian Way Day 11: Aperlae to Cakil Beach

Aperlae to Cakil Beach

Starting km: 204

Finishing km: 222

Distance walked: 18km

Almost the entire day was spent walking through what looked like a giant natural rock garden.  And while some of it was climbing over the rocks or pushing through the predictably spiky plants, a lot of it was just walking along flat manicured (or so it seemed) trails.

Along the way were lots of little bays.  Not sure if the somewhat murky character of the water was due to the previous night's thunderstorms or if they just aren't the brilliant turquoise of most of the rest of the sea 'round here.

We had two quick visits to small tourist towns on the coast, Ucagiz and Kalakoy.  The former has a road leading to it, but is most easily reached by boat or foot, and the latter has no road access at all.  They both seemed like really lovely places. It seems like the farther along the coast you go from Kalkan, the nicer the tourist towns become.

Kalakoy is also home to a 14th century Genoese(!) castle, which shares the hilltop behind the town with the biggest concentration of Lucian tombs we've yet seen.  I'm in danger of getting tombed out! Just off shore of Kalakoy are further remains of the Lycian city of Kekova, dropped there after its abandonment by a series of earthquakes.

We ended the day at lovely little beach at the end of a narrow bay.  The stones of the beach are made of well rounded marble!

Quite a few mosquitos here, but multiple squadrons of dragonflies are doing their best to keep them at bay.

Oh!  Almost forgot!  Shortly before stopping for the day we crossed the official (by the gpx track we're using for navigation) halfway point!

Lycian Way Day 10: Coban Beach to Aperlae

Coban Beach to Aperlae

Starting km: 184

Finishing km: 204

Distance walked: 20km

With the disaster of the previous evening, it was nice that we are least got to appreciate the views out from "our" bays. They actually weren't even exclusively ours, as there were at least three other tents there, only the second time we'd had anyone else at a campsite with us.

The following morning the walk along the coastline then up away from the shore was mercifully easier than the previous night's.  And though it was much hotter down at sea level, things went fairly smoothly.

We made it to the base of the hilltop city of Apollonia in early afternoon, though declined to climb up, because:

1. There were many more ruins to come and
2. We wanted to ensure that we reached out destination for the night, an actual pansiyon (guesthouse/pension) rather than a campsite, with time to go for a swim.

As if to prove point A., with a few km of gentle downhill behind us, we arrived at the remains of the city of Aperlae.  All that obviously remains are the city walls, and dozens of tombs scattered across the landscape.

A short walk over a narrow isthmus from Aperlae and we reached our planned pansiyon.  The wind had really picked up, and even though it was only 16:00, our shadows were already very long.  So a swim didn't really seem that appealing anymore.

But we still got to sit on the covered dock and watch as the clouds built and greyed on the horizon.  Though the whole evening was a little pricey, we had a delicious dinner of a whole grilled fish, with yummy oregano, lemon, onion and garlic sauce and a side dish of yogurt and spice covered grilled veggies.  Further accompaniments took the form of bites from mosquitos (bad) and watching lightning in the distance (good, since we were sleeping indoors).

An altogether better day, and one that finishes in a comfy, cozy bed, all clean (albeit from a cold shower).

Today also seemed to be packed with other walkers: the five or so we shared the campsite with in the morning, a group of eight or so Ukrainian hikers, and a huge group of maybe 30 Turkish day hikers.  This after rarely seeing more than four or five other walkers a day since about day three!

Lycian Way Day 9: Small clearing 1000m up in the mountains north of Kas to Coban Beach

Campsite in the mountains Waaay up above Bogazcik Adask to Coban Beach

Starting km: 163

Finishing km: 184

Distance walked: 21km

My memories of this day are clearly coloured by the end.  We (or I at least) thought we had plenty of time to make the final 3km walk to our campsite at Coban beach (actually a pair of little rocky beaches, each at the end of its own little bay).  But I hadn't reckoned on the fact that Sarah was already pretty tired and that the last kilometre was very rough going over bouldery and heavily eroded rocky coastline. We ended up arriving with Sarah exhausted and very unhappy.  We hadn't quite needed to walk in the true dark, but we did need our headlamps to find a spot for the tent and set it up.

With that unpleasantness behind us, I'll talk about the good bits of the day.

In the morning we had a fairly easy walk down, then briefly up to the ruins of Phellos.  This was a small Lycian garrison town high up on a ridgetop. We sat and had breakfast looking one way down to the Mediterranean, another way back to the mountains we'd come through and all around us at the ruins of the town walls and the Lycian tombs.  The tombs are the most robust of all Lycian structures, surviving neven when little else does. There seem to be two main types, those carved straight into the rock of hill or cliffisdes, and the massive stone sarcophagi that are raised up on platforms.

From there we had a looooong way down to the city of Kas, so it was a little surprising that, after a quick couple of hundred metres down from Phellos, we spent most of our time cruising along a red earth plateau.

The reason for this was that we had a great big cliff to first sit and admire the view from (along with a herd of wild goats that wandered past [I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether we were admiring both the view and the goats, or whether we and the goats were admiring the view]) and then walk down to the bottom of ourselves.

When we finally did, we were in Kas.  It's pretty much just as tourism focussed as Kalkan, but I liked it way better.  It still feels much more lived in, and the tourism businesses aren't quite as fancy/overpriced.

We spent a long time in Kas, doing some grocery shopping, drinking some ayran, eating some borek, drinking a coffee and a tea and charging my phone.

Following all this, we carried on walking along the coast, stopping at Limanagzi public beach (which had a shower) for a refreshing afternoon  swim. Which, since we've already discussed what happened next, and will discuss it no further, is the end.

Lycian Way Day 8: Campsite in the mountains Waaay up above Bogazcik Adask to Small clearing 1000m up in the mountains north of Kas

Campsite in the mountains Waaay up above Bogazcik Adask to Small clearing 1000m up in the mountains north of Kas

Starting km: 141

Finishing km: 161

Distance walked: 20km

Another lovely day of walking.  This one probably felt more like actual tramping than any other.

We left early, before the sun was over the horizon and at a shepherds' home in the next pasture downhill were met by a huuuuge dog.  Sheep dogs in the mountains are often scary, so I was I I initially scared, but as it turned out, this one was a giant puppy and just wanted to play.  Its mom was much lazier, but no more scary.

A while later we saw a giant parade of a few hundred goats being moved by three similar (in appearance… they weren't quite as friendly) dogs.  Several of the goats were standing on their hind legs as they reached up to get at the more tender leaves of the trees.

A bit of road walking (and a couple of Lycian tombs just sitting there by a road cut) and we were in a scaled down replica of the charming farming valley we'd been in the previous day, right down to the wooden granaries built on the Lycian/Roman model.

We headed down what quickly turned into a logging road and around 10:45 saw our last other person of the day.  From there it was all just walking through pleasantly cool pine forest. First down a river valley (with a stop at a delightful and unexpected spring, complete with fireplace and picnic area), then sidling up a hillside.  Over 500m climbing to finish the day, but it was a gentle slope and shady almost all the way up and I even kind of enjoyed it.

By the time we were up at 1000m asl, the vegetation had changed to mostly scrub oak and the ground was hard and rocky.  There were still enough clearings, and even some with softish flat ground that we could stop for a nice long rest, dinner, and a giagantic pomegranate before bed.

Lycian Way Day 7: Kalkan to Campsite in the mountains Waaay up above Bogazcik Adask

Kalkan to Campsite in the mountains Waaay up above Bogazcik Adask

Starting km: 121

Finishing km: 141

Distance walked: 20km

Just a wonderful day all around.  Even though it started with a climb from just above sea level to 800m, it was cool, shady, on a not-too-steep trail and had expansive views back over Kalkan and the sea.

Up and over a saddle and down a 4WD road into the village of Bezirgan, which spread itself out in a timeless but comfortable fashion over a high mountain valley that looked just idyllic.  The men of the village were all sitting around drinking tea outside the town hall building. And as we were leaving, some Iz meleği (Turkish for trail angel!) had left a small pile of apples on top of a rock that I think only Lycian way hikers would have any reason to pass by.

More climbing back up out of the valley, then the one ever so slightly less than pleasant part of the day when we descended along an arterial road (with very wide shoulders and not tons of traffic thankfully).  But after that we went up again, and into a magical landscape of eroded limestone hills and huge boulders. It reminded me a little of Castle Hill back in NZ.

We would dearly have loved to stop there for the night, but we needed a few more kilometres to ensure we made it to the next resupply town in three days.  So on we went. And discovered that we'd returned to the tops of the maritime peaks with more fabulous views up and down the coastline (around 950m vertically below, but close enough that you might still be able to roll and bounce your way into the water if you put your head [and rest of your body] to it).

We finished our day's walk nice and early, just before 15:00, which gave us some time to just sit and relax at our camp for the night, a nice flat, soft spot at the high end of a (now.vacated for the season) summer pasture.

Overall there wasn't anything really spectacular today, but it was all just so pleasant that it was one of my favourite days of the walk so far.  Sarah's heel went okay too, and it's looking like it'll be good as new in no time.

Lycian Way Day 6: Kalkan to Kalkan (via Patara)

Kalkan to Kalkan (with a stop in Patara)

Starting km: 88

Finishing km: 121

Distance walked: 32km

Waking up this morning was a treat.  We were in a bed. We didn't have to pack up our camping gear.  And we'd be spending the night in the same place! 

To give Sarah's foot a rest, I walked out to the site of Patara, the capital of Lycia.  I started out walking backwards on the Lycian Way route, headed out of the suburbs of Kalkan and to the southern coast of the bay it sits in.  The trail quickly turned pretty woolly, with a fair bit of rock scrambling and difficult to follow bits. Thankfully it soon climbed up to a low saddle topped by the aqueduct that must have fed Patara.  I was amazed to learn that this section was under pressure, acting as a sort of a siphon. It was topped with huge stone cubes with round holes bored through their centres and lips and recesses around these holes on opposite sides of the blocks.  These must have been sealed with pitch or something to allow the system to water down into the saddle then back up the other side.

Up on the saddle I joined the trail going the correct way (the two directions almost meet at the saddle) and walked through pine Forest and scrubby thorn bush and holly-like plants that gave my lower legs a good exfoliation.

Round the other side I descended the hill I'd been sidling around and encountered the first Lycian ruins, several tombs outside the main excavated area of the city.  I also encountered Sarah! She'd taken a dolmus out to meet me there and had brought along a very welcome picnic (yum to crispy, salty, sour-cheese filled borek!)

After lunch we popped down to the Patara beach for a quick swim, then back to the archaeological site.  It's much more extensive than any of the three sites we'd visited over the past few days (though the theatre was probably the least impressive, and was the only one visitors weren't allowed to climb up and explore).  Smaller still, but impressively reconstructed was the council chambers of the Lycian League. Lycia was perhaps the original republic, and it's government was presented as an ideal by a number of nineteenth century political philosophers.  The founding fathers of the US apparently also looked to Lycia as an example.

Unlike Xanthos, Lycia's end was more of a whimper than a bang, as the League's political influence waned when it came under direct Roman rule and then its economic influence faded when (like so many other great port cities) its harbour silted in.

We were just at the main gate to the city and Sarah was about head back to the Dolmus stop when a Turkish couple in an SUV pulled up and offered us a ride back.  I wanted to walk, but Sarah happily accepted.

My walk back took a slightly different route, and ended with a final view of the Xanthos/Esen River Valley (which, as Sarah pointed out, it felt like we'd got to know far better than necessary) and of Kalkan town spilling down the slopes to the harbour.

As I approached the town along the wide shoulder of the busy D400, I came upon a dog.  I'm not usually a fan of strange dogs while hiking. At best they usually get tangled up underfoot with their friendliness.  Or the bark a lot and leave me nervous or startled. Or at worst they're genuinely threatening. But this one just ran away as I approached, and kept running alongside the busy traffic ahead of me for about a kilometre.  The poor thing was wearing a collar, so probably was far from comfortable being out by the busy road, and seemed scared and probably tired and thirsty too. It followed me into town, but ran off and disappeared when a tiny pet dog probably one fifth its size started barking.  I hope it found its way home okay!

Lycian Way Day 5: Xanthos to Kalkan

Xanthos to Kalkan

Starting km: 70

Finishing km: 88

Distance walked: 18km

This was a day of two halves.  

The morning was great.  The dog that had kept us up all night greeted us cheerfully and accompanied us for the first km or so of our walk (I honestly think now that it probably thought it was protecting us by barking all night near our campsite… who knows, maybe it was!?)

From there most of the morning was spent walking on the aqueduct that fed Xanthos.  Not just near it, but literally on it, as it contoured the hillside. It was in varying condition, but especially as you neared the source it was in great shape, still being used by some locals for irrigation 2500 years after its construction!

Things got tougher as we climbed up through thicker bush and a bit of mud towards the water source.  The whole rest of the day was a bit tiring and frustrating, as the trail bobbed up and down hills, in and out of pine forest and little villages.  In doing this it committed the cardinal sin of trail design, being difficult for no particular reason. The views out over the greenhouses and distant mountains were nice enough, but not worth climbing up a 200m hill, then down again, then up again four or so times over, especially when multiple roads went the same places without all the twists and turns and hills.

It just got a bit frustrating, especially for Sarah who walked most of the day in jandals to aid her blister's healing.  

When we arrived at km 88 in the town of Akbel, we took a (metered but surprisingly expensive, but I understand that in the expat-heavy town the taxis have formed a bit of a cartel) taxi downhill to the town of Kalkan. 

I hadn't realized it until about an hour before we arrived, but Kalkan is ordinarily the kind of place I'd avoid like the plague.  Filled almost entirely with holiday villas and summer homes occupied mostly by British expats, the whole town center is pretty much entirely bars and restaurants.  Accommodation is pricey by Turkish standards too.

But:

1. It's quite pretty and
2. It sits in a spot where the Lycian way almost doubles back on itself as it loops out and around a peninsula to visit the ruins of the Lycian site of Patara.  This means that we can spend two nights in the same place, I can walk out to Patara and Sarah can meet me there by taking a dolmus and give herself a full day of foot healing time before we hit the trail again together day after tomorrow.

We ate (and picked) lots of pomegranates today.