It
was 6:00 when I woke on the camp stretcher outside Mabel after a good night’s
sleep. Jane tells me that after I went to sleep last night a large feral dog
that we had seen wandering around the camping ground climbed on my bed and went
to sleep with its head on my pillow. Jane eventually shooed it away thinking it
probably had fleas. Come to think of it I felt a bit itchy this morning.
I
persuaded Jane that we should celebrate my birthday by having a quiet day in
the camping ground and on the beach instead of doing a day trip in Smarty.
We
had a leisurely start with a latish birthday breakfast cooked by Jane – bacon
(which we found in the local Kipa supermarket yesterday), spicy Turkish sausage,
mushrooms, tomato and scrambled egg (cooked by me). It made for a great start
to the day.
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| Birthday Breakfast |
The
morning drifted by while I caught up with email and Jane Facebook. I started
reading the Clayton’s blog recommended to us by Koray yesterday. The
similarities are uncanny. They are Kiwis from Auckland who bought an Auto Trail
motorhome free of VAT (and don’t seem to have the hassle we had in getting a registration
number) and used it to tour Europe for a couple of years. Koray told us
yesterday they had spent 6 months in Turkey and it dawned on me today that
might be how to get round the rule that you have to export a vehicle within 12
months, otherwise you are liable for 20% VAT. So, we might just drift around
Turkey for another 5 months, or maybe pop back to Morocco for a while.
The
only problem with that plan is Jane was really struggling with the heat here in
Turkey in spite of it being cooler today – low 30s.
Late
morning we went down to the beach and lazed in the shade of an umbrella reading
and dozing. We went for a bob in the sea where I discovered the bed is rock
with lots of deep holes when I stepped into one. I also made an ungainly exit
from the sea when I was bowled by a wave. I had to repeat the embarrassment for
Jane after she fetched the camera.
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| How Not To Get Out Of The Sea |
We weren’t hungry after our big breakfast and ate a very late light lunch under Mabel’s awning – cheese, salami, cucumber and a peach. After that Jane did some more planning for Bulgaria and Serbia concluding we could get through them in a day each to give us more time in Croatia. While she was doing that I emailed the New Zealand Transport Agency asking whether Smarty’s A-Frame and her ingenious braking system while being towed would be legal in New Zealand.
The
temperature under the awning got too hot for Jane and she went back to the
beach while I stayed with Mabel. I started reading about Istanbul in our guide
book and felt there was so much to do there that we should stay more than four
days.
Koray dropped by with bad news shortly after Jane returned . The camping ground in the
heart of Istanbul used by the Claytons and the Antipodean trio we met in
Oludeniz had closed. We talked about options for stops en route to Istanbul and
then where we might stay there. The only camping ground is on the Black Sea
about an hour out of Istanbul. We decided we would rather find a hotel in the
city where we could park Mabel as that would have the big advantage for Jane of
air conditioning meaning she would be cool at night. Koray had a friend who is
a travel agent who had sought advice from Koray on places for 25 French
campervans to stay while travelling through Turkey on a trip from Paris to
Peking and back. Koray got on the phone to him and was expecting to have
something for us tomorrow. How very kind.
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| Koray On The Phone Arranging Accommodation For Us |
After
G and T’s and showers we waited for the sun to go down and it got a bit cooler
before visiting the camping ground restaurant for my birthday dinner. We had tzatziki and flat bread to start with chilies, bell peppers and the vegetable I
didn’t recognise last night. If anything, the chillies were even hotter than
yesterday! That was followed by steaks – mine with a pepper sauce, Jane had
mushrooms. Both came with rice, fries and vegetables.
We rounded off the meal with a tea and celebratory raki served with ice that tasted so much better than the tepid version we have been drinking in Mabel. That’s because Mabel’s fridge can only cope with one tray of ice per day in this heat and we use that for G and Ts. If I had known that I would have invested in the optional additional fan for the fridge designed to cope with temperatures greater than 32°.
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| Birthday Boy |
We rounded off the meal with a tea and celebratory raki served with ice that tasted so much better than the tepid version we have been drinking in Mabel. That’s because Mabel’s fridge can only cope with one tray of ice per day in this heat and we use that for G and Ts. If I had known that I would have invested in the optional additional fan for the fridge designed to cope with temperatures greater than 32°.
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| Tea And Raki To Finish |
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