25th June 2011
Everyone was up early completing last minute packing before progressively leaving the boat to go our own separate ways. The Wesslinks left at 7.15am for Dalaman airport, the Macdonalds and ourselves at around 7.30am to meet up with Avis at the entrance to the marina to collect our hire car.
Waiting for the hire car
Fully loaded and ready to go
The rest of the crews went on a 8am transfer bus to Dalaman airport, with only the de Boos statying back as they planned to spend an extra night in Gocek in a hotel near the marina.
We all said our farewells and all agreed the two weeks we spent sailing was a very memorable experience.
Our hire car did not turn up at 7.30am as promised and after several phonecalls it eventually turned up at 8.30am. Up till now our arrangements had run as smooth as clockwork, but Avis managed to get it totally wrong, even though we reconfirmed the arrangements the day before.
Our plan is to drive to Egirdir, about 400 km up into the mountains. The temperature in Gocek is already in mid 30’s and as we climb up into the mountains, it dropped as low as 24 C. we stopped for morning tea at a little village called Sogut, where we had coffee and some excellent gozleme ( a sort of Turkish pancake with a cheese, spinach and potato filling).
Morning tea in Sogut
The scenery is spectacular, sheer mountain peaks, some still with a little snow on top, green fertile valleys growing all sorts of crops, and bright blue sky.
Spectacular scenery
We stopped at a town called Bucak for lunch at a small restaurant that specialized in kebab and pide. We had a very nice lunch in a spotlessly clean restaurant and provided a fair bit of entertainment for the locals, as I don’t think a lot of Australians stop by, and there was a significant language barrier.
Eating again in Bucak
When we came over the hill into Egirdir, the view was stunning. The village is located at one end of a huge inland lake, surrounded by mountains, a bit like Queenstown in NZ.
It took us a while to find our hotel, which is pretty average, about 2.5 stars, but I am not sure there are a lot better places in town. It appears to be a summer resort popular with locals, providing an opportunity to get away from the heat at lower altitudes. Although it was 33C but nowhere near as humid.
Lake Egirdir
We had a walk around the immediate area and heard a racket coming down the street, which turned out to be a wedding procession. There was a long stream of cars and a flat top truck with a couple of musicians on the back playing Turkish music. All of a sudden one of the cars raced forward to the front and swerved across in front of the wedding car, cutting them off. People started piling out of cars and all of sudden started dancing in the street.
Ambushed wedding pary dancing in the streets
Further around the lake front we found a nice restaurant for dinner and made a booking.
When we went to the restaurant at 7.30pm, a strong wind had come up blowing across the lake at around 20 knots, significantly reducing the temperature. Keeping our food on the plate in the breeze was challenging, but we enjoyed our meal.
Dinner by the lakeside in a strong breeze
When we got back to the hotel, a wedding reception was well under way on the floor above our room. Turkish weddings are noisy affairs, so didn’t get a lot of sleep.
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