After a weekend of fun and games in Sochi with the Dutch quadracycle guys, the three of us sat down for a late lunch on the Monday 4th of October. We parted ways about 4pm … the two guys had about 360 km to go to get their record … but had probably left it too late in the day to do it all today. But they were now on their way to Moscow, where a party was being organised by Yamaha Russia.
I headed 200 yards away from our lunch spot at McDonalds to the International Port … where having said farewell to 2 travel companions, I met 2 more.
Mike and Irene from Georgia were travelling around Europe and the former Soviet Union 2-up. Both had been born there and had returned by 1200 GSA to visit their birth country, 20 years after leaving for the USA. Now they were about to board the boat to Turkey too.
The ferry arrived the following morning in Trabzon on the Turkish Black Sea coast, and along with Mike and Irene, I slowly did the Turkish customs shuffle while the rain pelted down outside the building.
Over 2 hours later, and with the rain now much lighter, we finally made it through and were about to get underway. Suddenly, the Turkish officials. who had been slowly plodding through the proceedures so far suddenly started waving and told us a big cheese was arriving and we needed to quickly leave the customs area … we were shooed out of the building, on to the bikes and out on the street. Mike had to go back for his passport and I rode on ahead.
I rode towards the town of Giresun, stopping first when I saw an ATM by the side of the road, and about 30-40km from the port, with the weather clearing a bit, I stopped at a roadside cafe to wait for Mike and Irene and to have lunch.
By the time lunch came and was eaten, there was still no sign of Mike and Irene. I assumed they had either stopped for lunch themselves, or had gone a different way.
It was now 1pm, and I was still less than 50km from Trabzon. I wanted to get to Cappadocia, and the town of Goreme tonight. It was about 650 km away. I had to hit the road.
I followed the coastal road west until the edge of Giresun, before turning south. The next 3-4 hours was a fantastic road. The road would from sea level up to a mountain pass at 2200 metres and the green, lush vegetation changed almost instantly on reaching the pass. From here on it was much drier, but the roads were no less windy or enjoyable.
I can highly recommend the road from Giresun to Sivas. A good adventure motorcycling route!
I continued on and passed the inland city of Kayseri just as the sun was setting. 50 km further on was Goreme. I pulled in to the touristy town in the dark, found a hotel for a good price (15TL, about 7 quid) that had internet.
I would have liked to stay in Goreme for a few days and check the place out a lot more. There are a number of valleys, churches ans even whole underground towns carved out of the soft rock. But I had to push on. I stopped for a few pics and then hit the road … towards Antalya and the Mediterranean.
I headed to Dave and Juliet’s place. They are an English couple who take in stray animals and visiting bikers in equal measure, not far from Kas, in Turkey.
I left Dave and Juliet to their menagerie, and hit the coast road. It was great weather, sunny and warm but not hot, and the scenery was as easy on the eyes as a Vladivostok bikers party.
I rode north … another great windy Turkish road, between Fethiye and Denizli. A couple of hours later I arrived at the modern Turkish tourist village of Pamukkale at the bottom of the hill … and its ruined twin … the Greco Roman ruins of Heirapolis, a spa town, at the top of the hill.
This place is kinda famous for its thermal springs … and travatines. Calcium rich water deposits calcium down the side of a hill over time to make these things:
I met up with a Marmaris based biker, Ihsan, for a ride out to see some local scenery. Ihsan has a local TV show about adventure biking. But he had recently sold his bike, a 1200GS, and will get a new one for next season. So we went around to Yusuf’s place to borrow his 990 for the day. They have a club in Marmaris called Marmaris Riders. Almost everyone in the club seems to have an adventure bike. Yusuf’s KTM (pictured here) will be shipped to Alaska at the start of next season, for his planned ride to Tierra del Fuego.
I have been really impressed with the rugged and beautiful Turkish coastline … we headed out beyond Datca to have lunch with a mate of his, Cem, who also has a 1200 GS and rode to Baikal and back a couple of years back.
I left Marmaris, now firmly heading for home. I was getting reports of very cold weather back in England. Its a bit unseasonally early for that sort of thing, but I had to move my ass.
I had a few places I wanted to stop and see on the way. First cultural stop on the way home was the city of Troy. For a very long time, people thought the mythical city that features in Homer’s Iliad was just fictional – just legend. Until they found it .
The Hellespont or Dardanelles is the strait that separates Europe from Asia in this part of the world. I headed for Canakkale, where there are regular ferries across the narrow strait. Above Canakkale was a massive Turkish reminder … a symbol of pride dating back to the rise of Mustafa Kemal and thus the rise of the modern Turkish nation.
18th of March 1915 … it was the date the Turks turned back a poorly planned and wildly overoptimistic British plan to simply sail up the Hellespont and capture Istanbul by naval bombardment. It was a plan from the “soft underbelly” theorist extraordinaire, Winston Churchill. But they didnt get anywhere near Istanbul. They didnt even get past the first obstacle, the Hellespont / Dardanelles still 200km from Istanbul.
After the Royal Navy failed to sail, let alone secure, the Dardanelles, Churchill sent the Army in … British, French, Australian and New Zealanders landed 6 weeks later on the Gallipoli peninsula, to take the Dardanelles by land. But that 6 week delay had given Mustafa Kemal, a young officer in the Ottoman Army, just enough time to prepare a defence for what was pretty obviously going to happen next.
The result was about 9 months of trench warfare, in which the ‘Allies’ got nowhere … failed to take the Gallipoli Peninsula, failed to take the Dardanelles and never came anywhere near Istanbul.
The repercussions were that Churchill was forced to resign, Australia gained “national conciousness” (such that it would never again blindly follow Britain’s lead or blindly put its soldiers under British military command) and Mustafa Kemal began his amazing rise to becoming the father of modern Turkey. So for both the Turks and the Australians, the Gallipoli Campaign is central to the birth of their respective Nationhoods.
Crossing the Dardanelles here took me directly to Gallipoli Peninsula. And here there were a number of memorials I needed to see.
I was unprepared for the huge array of military cemeteries, dozens and dozens of them, very well preserved. The peninsular is largely national park, in order to preserve the graves and battlegrounds. As mentioned earlier, the region is very symbolic for the Turks as well, for the role the battles played in the rise of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), and that helps preserve the region as a sacred site.
A lone motorcycle stands watch over the Australian cemetary at Lone Pine, sundown 23.10.2010:
One of the more touching follow ups on the Gallipoli campaign was written by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) himself in 1934 … 19 years after the battle.
He wrote a tribute to the ANZACs that is now found in the Ataturk memorial in Canberra, and on the ANZAC memorial on the Gallipoli peninsula.
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives; You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country, therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us, where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries; wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.
Route Map – Turkey:
