Day 145: Sunday 10 August – Kaş to Beldibi, by Ken

I woke well after 7:00, probably as a result of spending over an hour in the middle of the night taking in the moonlit view before retreating into Mabel. There's little doubt the camping ground at Kaş has to be the most delightful spot we have ever stayed. That was the end of our plan to have Mabel packed up, showered and be in the camping ground’s Gecko Restaurant for breakfast when it opened at 08.00. It was well after 9:00 by the time I ordered a Turkish plate which was virtually identical to Thursday’s offering. Jane went for a chocolate pancake which arrived oozing Nutella.

Jane's Breakfast Pancake

We took one last look at the view from our pitch. We really had landed on our feet in Kas. A pitch that felt private, yet close to the facilities, a view out over the bay and just a stone’s lob from the sea. Over breakfast we had talked about staying another day, there was time in our schedule to do it, but for all we knew there was something as good, if not better, waiting for us in our travels. We doubted it somehow, Kaş Kamping was just about perfect.

We hitched up Smarty outside the camping ground near where she had been parked for the last four days. The camping ground manager came out to watch, as always the first question was how did Smarty steer?

We set off with satnav showing 160km to drive to our next stop at Beldibi on the coast near Antalya. A short drive, but the driving time was shown as more than 4 hours. We drove into Kaş and then climbed a steep hill that took us eastwards. We climbed for a long time through pine forests, I guessed to 1,000 metres (Mabel’s satnav was taking Sunday off) before descending to the coast at Demre. While waiting at traffic lights in the town a group of men sitting outside a café spotted Smarty and started talking animatedly, one gave us the thumbs up and a big grin.

Marina At Kas

A good dual carriageway took us along the coast where we saw a family of five out for a drive – on a scooter. We had got used to seeing four but five was a record! A young boy sat on the petrol tank in front of his father who was driving. Sandwiched between the man and his wife was another child and the wife had a youngster sitting on her lap. Needless to say there wasn’t one crash helmet between them.

We stopped on a single lane road that twisted and turned its way around coves along the coast to change drivers and let ducklings past. Some of the coves had beaches with people swimming and bobbing. One had a cave with a group sitting in its shade.

Road Wound Its Way Along The Coast

Shady Cave

In the town of Finike we were overtaken by a scooter (with just two riders) the pillion passenger gave us the thumbs up. We left the coast shortly after leaving Kumluca and began climbing into more hills. We pulled off the road in the shade of pine trees to eat lunch of Greek salad and bread. The shade wasn’t a lot of help, it became very hot with Mabel’s air conditioning off. Her gauge showed the outside temperature as 37°.

We Stopped A Few Times For Photo Opportunities

Setting off after lunch the road climbed for quite a while before beginning to descend. A long length of the road’s surface was molten bitumen, we could hear it swishing under our tyres. We had two very near misses on the descent - As I was keeping a careful eye on a tight bend Jane let out a very loud gasp and out my peripheral vision I saw a car extremely close and cutting in front of us to avoid oncoming traffic. It was so close Jane was convinced it was going to hit us. Soon after the swishing of our tires on the bitumen became much louder as did the noise of overtaking vehicles. Looking in the left mirror I spotted the habitation door was swinging open and very close to passing traffic! Fortunately there was a spot nearby where we pulled off the road and closed the door.

Bitumen Puddles

Mountains Near Journey's End

We found Beldibi Orkinos Camping which was situated by a beach at Beldibi west of the city of Alatanya. We were immediately sorry we hadn’t had another day in Kaş. It was by far the worst place we had stayed. There were no defined piches, it was a case of park anywhere we liked. We eventually found somewhere where our cable would reach a power point, but only just. It was also close to the facilties.

Our Pitch At Beldibi

It was stinking hot and we decided to take a dip in the sea to cool off. Getting in there wasn’t easy, we had a choice of negotiating a bank of steep boulders or using one of a number of timber ramps. I chose a ramp, but abandoned that as the lower part was covered in very slippery weed. Instead, I clambered over the boulders and made my way tentatively into the water. It wasn’t easy as the bed was covered in boulders which also had a coating of the green slippery weed. We didn’t stay in the water long it was so awful and we struggled back up the boulders and returned to Mabel.

"Beach" At Beldibi

I decided to visit the showers to wash off the salt. They were absolutely disgusting looking as though they had never been cleaned and had greenery protruding through the roof and down into the showers. I decided against a shower. Exploring further, the two urinals were out of commission being covered in black polythene bags. I could only get water out of one of the three washbasin taps and it had a ‘soapy’ feel to it. I tasted the water – it was salty, not as concentrated as sea water, but definitely salty. This must be the place where our antipodean acquaintances filled their drinking water tank with salt water!

Beldibi Facilities Building

Beldibi Shower! (But at least this one had a curtain)

For our evening meal we had pasta with the remainder of the sauce I had prepared in Kaş bulked out with a tin of tomatoes and slices of sausage. While we ate music blasted out from the nearby bar, quietened down for a while before reverting to full volume again. The alternating cycle of noise was repeated for quiet a while until a man took over singing live to recorded backing music. He was good but, unfortunately, he didn’t sing for long and we were back to someone fiddling with the volume control again.

Neither the temperature, nor the humidity, dropped as the evening progressed and we decided to sleep under the awning on our camp stretchers again.

Today's Trip (161km)