Day 143: Friday 8 August – Another Quiet Day In Kaş, by Ken

As last night we awoke during the night feeling cold and slept the remainder of night in Mabel.

There was no sign of the bird that mimicked a cat yesterday morning, but a couple of cats dropped by to see Jane. One was a tortoiseshell with one yellow eye and one grey, the other cat was black. Jane lived up to their expectations that had undoubtedly been telegraphed ahead by other cats Jane had befriended on our travels. It wasn’t long before there was a bowl of bread soaked in milk for them. To Jane’s disappointment they liked the milk, but turned their noses up at the bread.

Here's Jane's latest feline friends:

At 9:00 we had a good iChat with Harry and Ella. Although they lost the picture from Turkey we were still able to see them OK. They looked up Kaş and seemed genuinely surprised at how far we had travelled since last chatting from Ioannina in western Greece. It was good to hear that Ella’s travelling had stopped and there seems to be a good forward workload to keep her in Wellington for some time to come. Harry was busy with varsity and his one-on-one coaching of Wellington College’s 2^nd XI. We also caught glimpses of a sleek looking Ziggy which Harry ascribed as due to lots of exercise chasing balls on Tinakori Hill (or whatever it’s called these days). Chewy and Kobe also made appearances and seem to have grown significantly since we left.

After our hour long chat we returned to the Gecko café for breakfast. We both opted for goats cheese and tomato omelette. I had tea with mine, Jane wentfor OJ in ieu of the Turkish coffee she had yesterday.

Dive Boat Heading Out

Then it was back to Mabel where I spent the rest of the day working on the blog while Jane snoozed and read.

Contemplative Jane

Blogger At Work

I have been wondering for a while now what happens to the sewage from camping grounds like Kas Kamping situated on the sea shore. As I sat outside working on the blog the camping ground manager appeared and lifted a piece of timber partially covering a manhole behind Mabel, then he looked out to sea, lifted the cover on an adjacent manhole, looked out to sea again and then walked off. Perhaps it pays not to wonder too much about these things?

Lunch was bread, cheese, olive pesto and a peach.

Jane was going to take me for a bob in the sea having really enjoyed a number of swims over the last three days. Jane enjoys swimming but likes to have company. I don’t have the Perrott swim genes but can float and get myself around in sea water. So, as a compromise, we go out for a ’bob’ together, so named after the Greek practice of bobbing about offshore, usually while wearing a hat. Unfortunately, the wind got up during the afternoon and the sea became too rough for a bob. The dive boat returned early, then headed towards Kaş and didn’t return, possibly it was taking shelter, or maybe it had a problem.

We Were Going To Bob Out To The Line Of Buoys, But The Sea Became Too Rough

It was my turn to cook and I prepared a sauce of garlic, onion, anchovies and tomatoes, both tinned and sun-dried to eat with pasta. By the time I had finshed Jane was feeling less than ideal and we saved the sauce for another day. Instead we nibbled on some savoury olive biscuits bought a while back in Athens.

It seemed that our visit to the lands of the Greek philosophers was having its effect, because we began a philosophical discussion as we watched the evening light fade over the gulf and its islands. First point under consideration was how big an island would the pooh generated by the average human over a lifetime create. I thought it would be akin to one of the small islands we could see offshore, Jane was skeptical. Googling the subject revealed it wouldn’t be much of an island - something like 4 tonnes in a lifetime.  Next, our massive minds turned to wee, that was also disappointing as my thought that it would be enough to make a large lake was wildly optimistic, or encouraging we thought, if you happen to be caught short some ways from a toilet. Apparently it would take 61 humans to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool over their lifetimes. While there is no way of verifying that statistic, it being unlikely that anyone would make an Olympic sized pool available, but even if they did, we thought it would be difficult to find 61 people willing to spend their lives peeing into it. We tried to calibrate it in other ways and concluded the numbers must be wrong, in particular Jane thought I must have drunk the equivalent of an Olympic pool full of beer in my life to date.

With such esoteric matters resolved we returned to our books. As it grew dark we heard the sound of a flute wafting up from the rocks somewhere below us. It sounded quite magical in the still evening air.

The process of pondering some weighty topics during the evening had taken its toll and it wasn’t long before we were asleep on our camp stretchers.

Day 142: Thursday 7 August – R and R In Kas, by Ken

We both awoke feeling cold (relatively speaking) in the early hours and retreated into Mabel’s bedroom.

When I checked my email first thing there was a message from Anna Scott from Vodafone following up on mine to Russell Stanners, the CEO. She understood my frustration but to get the discount assigned to our internet connection permanently I would have to go through the text validation process again. Her email showed links that would allow me to trigger a text at a time to suit me. So, I went through the text process for a fifth time, the validation code arrived from Vodafone but I couldn’t return it as confirmation. I suspected the Turkish network didn’t recognise the Vodafone number the text had come from and it wasn’t disclosed. I emailed Anna explaining what had happened and pointed out the farrago was of Vodafone’s making and they should sort their systems out such that customers didn’t have to do it for them.

Shortly after Jane got up I heard the sound of a cat meowing and told Jane she had a visitor. Jane could find no sign of a cat outside, but she tracked down the noise as coming from a bird perched in an olive tree nearby. Unfortunately, it flew away before she could grab the camera.

We walked down to the camping ground’s Gecko Café for breakfast. It was a great setting on a terrace by the sea overlooking a small jetty to which was moored a dive boat preparing for the day. We had noticed how breakfast seemed to be an important meal for Turks. Turkish breakfast was on the menu and we ordered one each. I opted for tea while Jane went the whole hog and opted for Turkish coffee.

While we waited for our food Jane started studying a leaflet sitting between the glass table top and the table cloth. “Oh look”, she said “Aqua Sausage”. I looked and saw it wasn’t a watery chipolata late edition to the menu, it was advertising Aquassage, a massage given in a water bath.

With the exception of two meals in Pamukkale we had been very pleased with the food we have eaten out in Turkey. Our breakfast experience was yet another good meal. It comprised of a boiled egg, beyaz (the Turkish equivalent of Feta) which tasted better than any goat’s cheese we had eaten in a long while, a creamy dip, cucumber, tomato, honey, Nutella (which seems very popular in Turkey judging by the quantities on supermarket shelves) strawberry jam, grapes, dried apricots, olives, baked Haloumi type cheese and two slices of spicy sausage. That all came with a large basket of fresh bread. Jane found her coffee very similar to its Greek counterpart and very much an acquired taste that she wasn’t sure she wanted to acquire.

We spent the rest of the day outside Mabel. I set up our big table in the shade of an olive tree and got some blog published while also starting to fill gaps in more instalments.

We didn’t need lunch after our big breakfast and nibbled on a peach and some cxhocolate balls instead.

Just before 20:00 we headed back to the Gecko Café for dinner. Our waiter had very good English which he said was self taught by watching English movies with Turkish sub-titles. He had a collection of 3,000 movies and could reel off the top ten most popular worldwide. He was a teacher of Turkish based in a small village where there wasn’t much to do  outside work other than watch movies. Kaş was his home town and he had returned to work there during the school holidays. Unfortunately, we didn’t see him again after he took our orders and we weren’t able to find out more about him.

Kas From Our Dining Table

Jane’s fish was very good, as was my kofte. While we ate we watched a young couple preparing for a night dive. Once ready they jumped in from the dive boat jetty. Back at Mabel we were able to watch their under-water progress via the glow of their powerful lights reflecting off the surface.

Preparing For A Night Dive

It was still hot and humid by the time we were ready to sleep. We slept on our camp stretchers again.

Day 141: Wednesday 6 August – Perfect Pitch in Kaş, by Ken

In spite of our late night last night Jane and I were up and about before 6:00. I found I couldn’t open my right eye, my lids were stuck together. I was quite surprised I hadn’t got conjunctivitis before then given the dust and dirt we had experienced in our travels. I managed to find the bottle of anti-biotic drops I had been prescribed the day we left the US, dosed both eyes and decided to wear my glasses rather than contact lenses.

Mabel At Oludeniz

We took a walk to the beach to take photographs, it did look strange and uninviting.

Sugar Club 'Beach', Oludeniz

Sugar Club Lagoon, Oludeniz

We were packing up Mabel before 7:00 and all ready to go at 8:00. I paid and got reception to open the sliding gate. Adam and Jamie were there to see us leave, we wished each other good trips and hoped to meet up at the Munich Beerfest. We stopped just outside to empty the toilet cassette at an unsatisfactory facility comprised only of a capped standpipe. There was no hose to allow me to give the cassette its usual rinse.

Jane did a great job in getting Mabel underway on the loose gravel slope out of the camping ground and on the long climb out of the town. We have found the combination of the powerful engine and a lot of weight on the back means it is relatively easy to spin the front wheels, a very light foot is required on the accelerator to avoid that.

It was a relatively easy and short drive (less than 120km) to Kaş that Jane did most of. Initially, we travelled inland climbing through hill country with lots of roadside stalls offering süt misir before descending to the coast passing lots of poly tunnels on the way. I drove the final leg which was slow going as the road wove its way hugging the coast with lots of small coves.

Sut Misir Roadside Stall

We Wondered How Anyone Can Cycle With The Temperatures In The High 30s

Poly Tunnels Everywhere

At Camping Kaş the manager suggested I should take a look at the only pitch he had available while Jane waited outside with Mabel. I wasn’t disappointed, it was on the edge of the site with just a low cliff between it and the sea a few metres below. We were close to the facilities as well as a water supply and a chemical toilet disposal point. One small downside was Smarty had to be parked on the road outside the camping ground, but we weren’t planning on using her much during our stay anyway.

I gave Jane the news, we unhitched Smarty and drove down the steep slope to our pitch. Within 30 minutes we had a delightful set up with Mabel’s awning facing the sea. That and trees either side of us meant we were hidden us from the rest of the camping ground, it felt as though we were the only people there. A perfect pitch.

View From Our Perfect Pitch, Camping Kas

Whenever we take Ziggy somewhere new and let her out of the car she has to explore her surroundings rushing here and there, sniffing the breeze with her tail wagging while she gets a feel for her surroundings. Jane is very similar in that regard, no sooner had we set up then she was off seeing what the camping ground had to offer. She returned pleased with her sniffing and her imaginary tail wagging vigorously. Close to us was the camping ground’s Gecko Café which looked good. Below that were terraces with loungers and umbrellas. While there was no beach, there were options of either diving in from a platform, or a more gradual descent into the water via a ladder. The facilities nearby were modern and clean.

Gecko Cafe

Terraces, Camping Kas

While Jane was gone I noticed water running from under the fridge and across the floor. It wasn’t coming from one of the bottles of water we had put in the fridge to cool. The waste outlet for the sink sits over the fridge so it seemed that could be the problem. I removed one of the fridge’s external vents but there was a shroud hiding the waste outlet. Back inside I looked at the waste outlet from the sink and found it was not attached to the waste pipe – the single securing screw had come loose. Fixing the problem was a challenge as the thread on the screw was too short to reach the waste pipe. An initial attempt to ‘hook’ the plastic flange on the waste and lift it via one of the holes in the waste outlet with a straightened safety pin until the screw made contact failed. However, a second attempt involving ‘spearing’ the flange by holding the pin under the outlet enabled the screw to make contact sufficiently for me to then remove the pin before finally tightening the screw. I gave the screws in the wastes to the shower and hand basin a tweak to make sure they were secure. The job only required a modest effort, but by the time I finished my T shirt was wringing wet. Kaş was not only very hot with the temperature in the high 30s, the humidity was also very high.

It was lunchtime and we needed to eat and also stock up on a few supplies. We drove Smarty into the nearby town of Kaş, found a park by the small harbour and set off to explore. There was no sign of a supermarket but we were spoilt for choice as to which of the many restaurants to eat at. We settled on Zeųtin Olive with tables outside in the shade on one side of a small square. While we were waiting for our meals to arrive we spotted a scooter ridden by a man with a large dog standing crosswise on the foot boards. It seemed perfectly at home. A teenager was skateboarding around the square proficiently. He was joined by an older man who announced it was his first time on a skateboard. After a few teething troubles he looked quite the part, but nowhere near as good as the teenager. A third, stocky, man arrived and took a turn. He was hopeless and fell off.

Kas Harbour

Kas Street

Our meals were excellent. Jane had stuffed calamari while I chose ‘fish pottery’, It turned out to be seafood cooked in a small sealed clay pot the waiter had to crack open before spooning out the contents. Both were served with salad, rice and fries which seem to be the standard accompaniments in Turkey.

Fish Pottery

After lunch we drove Smarty to the outskirts of the town thinking we would find a supermarket. We were out of luck but happened across a small Kipa in the town where we picked up supplies. At the checkout Jane spotted some Croc lookalikes on special and tried a bright red pair. While not the height of fashion – wearing them she would be better equipped than a camel for walking in the desert, they were just what she needed for wearing on beaches.

Jane's New Shoes

The remainder of the day was spent lazing under Mabel’s awning, reading. Jane went for a bob in the sea.

Passing Traffic

Jane Bobbing Offshore From Mabel

It was far too hot and humid to sleep in Mabel and we settled down for the night on our camp stretchers under her awning falling asleep to the sound of water lapping on the rocks below. Bliss.

Today's Trip (116km)