Day 157: Friday 22 August – Goodbye Asia, Hello Europe, by Ken

Less than a week after it was far too hot and humid on Turkey's south coast to sleep indoors we lay shivering in bed early morning and seriously contemplated getting the duvet out of store. We had long forgotten when we last needed it, probably early June in Italy. When I got up at 6:00 the temperature outside was 4° and 14° inside. I resisted the temptation to turn Mabel’s heating on, but only briefly! Who’d have thought we needed heating in Turkey?

Smarty And Mabel First Thing

Our German Neighbour's Land Rover
(Wouldn't be any good for a sleep walker)

We had an exchange of texts with Harry to see how he was. It was good to read he is improving. His chest had settled down, the fever had gone and he was starting to get some energy back. Stowing the two chairs and small table we put out last night, but didn’t use, and disconnecting Mabel from the camping ground’s power supply only took a few minutes. We visited the restaurant briefly to check and send emails. I sent one to Koray’s travel agent friend explaining we had gone elsewhere not having heard from him and to Koray to let him know what had happened and thanking him again for his help.

Our Plan B for Istanbul was now to drive to Motocamp Istanbul approximately 50 km west of the city. We planned to spend the night there in Mabel and then head off Saturday morning for five nights in the Istanbul hotel we booked last night returning to collect Mabel on Thursday. Splitting yesterday’s drive into four legs and alternating the driving had worked well. With a bit over 400km to drive today we decided to do the same. We pulled out of the camping ground at 8:50, Jane had the first leg which took us on a dual carriageway towards Gerede. Initially, the scenery was similar to yesterday with the road climbing and descending through pine covered hills. Nearing Gerede we dropped down to an open plain with gently rolling hills where we were still well over 1,000 metres above sea level. The temperature soon moved to double figures as the sun began to do its work.

The Initial Part Of Our Journey Was Through Pine Covered Hill Country

We joined the E90 tolled motorway just south of Gerede and soon came to a fully automatic toll plaza offering lanes marked ‘OGS’ and ‘HGS’. The smart strip on Mabel’s windscreen bore the letters ‘HGS’ so we opted for an HGS lane. For everyone else signals showed either red or green. Ours still showed neither and I wondered whether the system is capable of reading British number plates?

The motorway was an excellent piece of road with a high design standard and a good running surface. It wasn’t particularly busy. The end of Jane’s leg coincided almost exactly with a motorway service area that we pulled into and changed drivers.

The gauge on one of our two gas cylinders had been showing empty for a while now but continued to deliver gas for cooking, water heating and this morning’s space heating. The other cylinder was full, not having been used since we filled up in Greece in mid-July. I reckoned there was enough gas to see us through until we reached Germany, but not knowing how readily available it was there and having seen that virtually every Turkish filling station had an LPG pump I decided we should take the opportunity to fill up at the service area. It took just 12 litres to give us two full tanks and that should probably last for the remainder of our trip..

Topping Up Mabel's LPG Cylinders

My first leg was very easy. Mabel burbled along at 95 kph and 2,000 revs and it was largely a matter of pointing her in the right direction while keeping a wary eye out for the curved balls that Turkish drivers can bowl at any moment. There was the usual joining the motorway and changing lanes without looking, the occasional overtaking on the inside and a few drivers seemed to make up their minds to take an off ramp at the last moment cutting across us from the middle lane and then driving over the chevroned area, only just making the ramp. We passed one family who had parked their car on the hard shoulder and were eating breakfast on the cutting slope in the shade of a tree – just as if they were having a picnic in a park.

We both had to contend with water tankers on the hard shoulder and in the fast lane watering plants with just a few cones and a man waving a red flag giving notice of their presence. We also came across workmen wandering down the fast lane with weed eaters on their way to cut the grass in the median. Worker safety was not something that seemed to have a high priority. Why they used plant species that need water thereby creating a maintenance liability and a saftey issue for workers and motorists was beyond me.

Men Cutting Grass In The Median With Weed Eaters

Our second changeover point coincided with another service area close to Lake Sapanda that looked very appealing with houses dotted around the lakeside. By now we were almost at sea level and the temperature was nudging 30°. We filled Mabel with diesel, it wasn’t long before we reached the Sea of Marmara where the motorway followed the coastline for 20km, or so. In the haze we could see lots of ships riding at anchor.

At the town of Gebze the motorway left the coast and it wasn’t long before we were passing through the industrialised outskirts of Asian Istanbul. By now the motorway was very busy and the outside temperature was back to the low 30s. We picked another service area for a lunch break and the last driving change giving me the responsibility of negotiating Istanbul. The service area was being reconstructed reducing parking to a rough, dusty unsurfaced area with temporary fuel pumps housed in shipping containers. I soon found we had parked directly under the flight path out of Sabiha Gökcen international airport that serves the Asian side of Istanbul. Every few minutes an aircraft, usually a B737 climbed out over us.

Temporary Fuel Pump

Mosque Under Construction On The Outskirts Of Istanbul

Following lunch of bread and cheese we set off on the last leg of the day. While mostly motorway, the volume of traffic made it the slowest leg of all. We passed through two toll stations getting our first green lights at each, it seemed the system could read our number plate after all. Nearing the centre of the city with its many modern high-rise buildings the motorway turned north for a while. The heavy traffic on our four lanes made for slow going, but traffic on the other side was even heavier and reduced to a crawl. The road turned westwards again and we crossed the Bosphorus on the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, (the northernmost of the two current bridges) and back into Europe a month after we had left it.

About To Cross The Bosphorus Into Europe

As we left Istanbul’s western outskirts the motorway became two lane. The satnav announced a delay of 30 minutes and soon after both lanes ground to a halt. Being Turkey, that didn’t mean everyone stopped. Soon the hard shoulder was busy, with traffic including trucks, the drivers obviously having important business to attend to.

The problem seemed to have been caused by a Volvo sedan sitting stationery in the fast lane, the driver shrugging his shoulders at passing traffic. Shortly after that we left the motorway passing through another toll station where this time we got a red light. That surely couldn’t be right. When I bought the pass on Sunday I was told there was enough credit to get us past  Istanbul. On Sunday we hadn’t got any lights at toll stations and yesterday our route avoided the motorway from Ankara to Gerede. Time will tell……

MotoCamp Istanbul was a misnomer it being in the middle of nowhere and 60km from the city centre. The only other occupants of the large grassed area were a couple in a Netherlands registered motorhome. We were met at the gate by a man with no English who showed us to a pitch next to a helicopter landing pad.

There was no wi-fi at the camping ground, so booking accommodation in Istanbul the previous evening had been a wise move. Once camp was established I phoned Derv and arranged to meet him and Nursel on their island on Sunday. Nursel, who is Turkish, agreed to speak to the camping ground manager in the morning to ensure it is OK for us to leave Mabel for five nights while we visit Istanbul.

We ate dinner of riso with tuna, mayonnaise and sun dried tomatoes. Shortly afterwards Ali, the camping ground manager and his English wife dropped by to welcome us. He had good English and readily agreed to let us leave Mabel there for five nights.

The couple in the Netherlands registered motorhome were sitting outside and we got into conversation with them. They were South Africans from Brisbane who had bought the motorhome second hand for a European trip and to get a feel for a motorhome specification that would meet their needs. He was instantly dislikeable, quite arrogant and opinionated. She was completely different and kept tying to rein her husband in. Not being citizens of one of the Schengen Zone countries (the 26 European countries party to the Schengen agreement allow free movement across their borders as a single country) they were only allowed to remain in Europe for 90 days in any 6 month period. To comply with that requirement they spent 3 months in Morocco. He described Morocco as dirty, full of Arabs and beggars. Leaving aside the fact that most Moroccans are not Arabs, we weren’t sure what he expected to find in North Africa – Genteel English women in cotton frocks sipping tea perhaps? Our conversation didn’t last too long.

Today's Trip (412km)