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donations
Having already tackled Turkey’s Central Plateau in 2010, this year’s Turkish challenge
was to ride across the Black Sea coast road with six months of inner city living behind us. A tough return to the bicycles was helped by a chance meeting with Fred a Swiss bicycle tourist who contributed his extensive knowledge of Indian cuisine to our evening meals and stories from his many cycling adventures to our campsite conversations. After three weeks of cycling, we spent a few days exploring Trabzon and took a side trip to Georgia, before finally fare-welling this amazing country and crossing to Russia by ferry.
Here are some facts and figures from our time cycle touring in Turkey in 2011:
- 1305 km cycled (longest day 96 km, shortest day 40 km on the black sea coast)
- 15 nights free camping, 13 nights in real beds (including 6 hotel rooms), 1 night on the ferry
- 232 glasses of Turkish çay drunk – and many of those without charge
- 14 portions of corba (Turkish soup) consumed
- 3 free camps at off season campsites
- 3 cycle tourists met en-route
- 3 drive train cleaning sessions after rain/road works
- 2 kilograms of unshelled hazelnuts given to us by strangers
- 2 hills pushed up (worst was 20%)
- 1 river wash but no swims (too cold!)
- 1 pod of dolphins spotted on the bus back from Georgia
- 1 drink bottle lost (and 1 non-insulating thermos purchased as a replacement)
- 1 very foggy day of cycling
- 1 well-earned hamam scrub-down
- 0 punctured tyres (thanks to our new Marathon XRs no doubt!)
Justin’s most unexpected bike ride: Cruising around Trabzon on a Thursday evening with a group of local cyclists chatting about cycling and trying to raise awareness of its benefits as a form of transport, followed by cay and photos in the University cafe.
Emma’s best Turkish breakfast: Tied between our regular cinnamon and orange campsite porridge and the Zeytin Mutfak (Olive Kitchen) restaurant spread in Sinop where homemade jams sat on a full table alongside kaymak and honey, bowls of olives, cheese and warm bread.
related posts to “Turkey By Numbers 2”
Turkey By Numbers
The observant may note that we’re still in Turkey. As winter approaches and our bicycles are getting accustomed to an indoor life, we thought it was timely to summarise our cycling adventures from Edirne to Cappadocia and back to Istanbul. Over a month on the road we tapped into a tiny part of this huge land, were amazed by the scale of the landscapes we cycled through and the never ending generosity and curiosity of the people we met along the way. – Posted by Emma
Day Of Food – Turkey 2
Our day of food began well with breakfast at our free camp wedged between a newly blossoming hazelnut grove and a slow flowing canal. The weather was warm enough that we could afford a leisurely start to the day enjoying the early morning sun and having a dry tent to pack away. At lunch time the sun was still shining for our stop in the town of Unye before we headed out on minor road around a peninsula to Persembe. – Posted by Justin
Team Turkey
The border crossing from Greece to Turkey was the most militarised border we have seen yet with age old tensions still much on display. Despite the soldiers having sandbag emplacements and large guns, a smile and wave from us was enough to light up their faces. Leaving Greece we had switched to travelling on our New Zealand passports and were no longer British meaning no visa required for Turkey and forcing the border guards to check a reference guide for these passports from a distant land. – Posted by Justin
Merry Christmas From Turkey
There are no empty parsnip bins at the supermarket. No desire to browse for emergency presents. No pine tree sellers charging extortionate prices for a dead tree. No barbecues (New Zealand) nor detailed planning to combat lack of public transport (London). From the first place we’ve ever lived where Christmas isn’t celebrated we’d like to warmly wish everyone a happy holiday period. – Posted by Emma + Justin
Day Of Food – Turkey
This was the final day of Bayram, meaning we were low on food supplies as many small shops were shut. Our shopping list has shrunk a bit in rural turkey with muesli, chickpeas, jam, couscous (and of course pork products) all off the shelves. We spent our second to last day on the road cycling from the edge of Tuz Golu (Salt Lake) then turning East to follow the silk road route passing a number of caravanserai along the way. – Posted by Emma
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