Day-14 | Short But Hard... & Decisions To Be Made

Kaleköy trailhead to Çayağzı | 14.3km

Another great night's sleep at an overnight free pitch outside Uçağız and just shy of the Kalekoy trailhead. Up with the sun, breakfasted and packed, I started off on the day's short ~13km route to the commercial Andriake campsite at the south-eastern end of Çayağzı beach.

Previous night's meal cooked on an open fire: breem baked with onion and wild sage, baked potato with yoghurt, baked aubergine and fresh village bread. Plus three cans of Efes malt to wash it all down :)

The sun was hidden behind a thin layer of cloud throughout the day so the going felt easier but the high humidity soon had me exhausted and sweating heavily and it ended up being a tough day of walking. The initial half of the walk was on easy terrain: undulating gravel roads and packed red mud paths with the usual scattering of stones and occasional boulder obstacles. 

Kaleköy shipyard, just before the trailhead

Easy terrain for the first 6km

Ottoman hill fort

Fast, easy trails

The route curved around Gökkaya Bay, where numerous tourish boats were anchored just offshore for swimming.

Gökkaya Bay

The Smuggler's Inn at Gökkaya was empty so I helped myself to a glass of coke, left a note with some cash and gave one of my cans of tuna to the resident cat.

Smuggler's Inn

The second half of the route was more technical and wound around the rocky shoreline, over Cakil Beach that was littered with the debris from fleeing Syrian refugees, along a rocky path and onto sandy Çayağzı beach.

Second leg of the day's journey; final destiation Çayağzı in the distance

Trail drop-in onto Cakil Beach

Picturesque coves

Rickety bridge onto Çayağzı beach

Çayağzı port & boatyard

I pitched up for the night at Andriake Campsite with shady pitches, electricity, hot showers, European style toilets. TL30 per night per tent, full dinner TL20-35, breakfast TL15, beers TL10 but an amply stocked off-licence just down the road. There was a big party of mixed country foreign students camping as part of an EU initiative called Lycian Pathfinders - Creactive (creative & active lol) Lycian Youth and the evening was spent drinking with a few of them and a couple of German dudes hiking towards Antalya with heavy packs but great kit (MSR tent etc.)

Pitched at Andriaki Campsite

Well equipped German dudes with heavy pack weights

The dilemma I face now is whether or not I should bail on my Lycian Adventure at Demre or continue my push onto Antalya. Demre is a good place to get a bus to Antalya... On the one hand the rocky trails have become dull plus the heat and the difficult terrain means the journey is taking longer than I expected (so will be more like 3-4 weeks walking instead of the initial 2-3 I estimated) and this may be an issue for work who have already been very accommodating. My kids are missing me and I'm missing them. The next stage is off-grid for 2-3 days and weather may be inclement. Also some of my kit is turning out to be less than suitable for long distance walking (more about that in the debrief and reflection notes when I finish). On the flip side, I set out to do the whole walk and I'll be disappointed in myself if I don't complete it. I'm not sure if, or when, the opportunity will arise for me to pick up where I left off and finish the Lycian Way if I do quit now. I need to make a final decision before I get to Demre.

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Day-13 | We Ate Like Kings

Boğazcık to Kaleköy trailhead | 19.2km

Up early at Ali's Pansiyon due to multiple cockerels crowing, the imam next door crooning at ear shattering decibels and the friendly neighbourhood bread man beeping his horn up and down the road. Ali's pushy wife rushed us all down for breakfast and moaned at me that people were still in the shower (repeat "yes they are still in the shower" ad nauseam) and still insisted I wear the house slippers (repeat "I don't wear other people's shoes" ad nauseam). Breakfast was good; the pansiyon's only saving grace was the homemade cooking & everything else about it made me want to scream.

Happy to be out of Ali's madhouse I headed off and onto the usual rocky scree goat paths. I mistakenly walked straight past the ruins of Appalonia without even noticing they were there and headed onward to the bay of Aperlai and the Purple House pansiyon to grab a spot of lunch and have a rest.

Goatherd's well

Ancient water cistern

The Lycian Way runs directly through the main garden of the Purple House. The owner, Rıza, has lived their for ten years after inheriting it from his fisherman grandfather and decided to settle there and try to build a self sustainable eco-farm for his family. He has a couple of pansiyon rooms and there's plenty of space to camp on his land that runs all the way up to the Aperlai ruins. He was welcoming and offered us the shaded seating places he's built in his garden to rest and eat our own food. He had a collection of snorkels, masks and flippers and suggested we swim and explore the sunken city ruins. Which we did. Coffee and Cola was TL5 a can/cup, pricey but worth it for his hospitality and to support his endeavour.

Rıza has built a huge water system combining recycled water from his greenhouse, a rainwater catchment pool and piping to grab local well water to top up when required. He has plans to add windpower to his solar array and start farming some livestock to produce milk, cheese etc.. 

The swim on the sunken city was refreshing but the ruins were unexciting and there were few interesting fish to see.

The now bog standard Lycian tomb above Aperlai

Beginning of the sunken city

Purple House pansiyon

Moving on from the Purple House I picked up a trail that traced the shoreline and necessitated scrambling over rock riddled paths and sharp seashore boulders for several kilometres. The sea here was stagnant and the shoreline was decaying fly infested mud - a change from the miles of similar rock strewn landscape I'd seen so far but not particularly pleasant...

A change of scenery, but not for the better

I pressed on over the rock face, eventually reaching the tourist fishing village of Uçağız where I picked up some fish and vegetables for dinner and a big bag of Efes beer :)

And we ate like kings.

Uçağiz campsite

Breem with onion and wild sage, baked potato, baked
aubergine, fresh village bread and Efes Malt

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