A long haul, another problem & silver linings.

Day 13 - 615 km (total 5205 km)

They say trouble comes in 3's , and also that 13 is an unlucky number, so I guess I shouldn't really have been surprised when something else happened - i didn't find out what it was though until I stopped for the night.

A nice breakfast to start the day in the garden of the little pension I was staying in ...

I then suveyed the road wondering whether to go left (the way I had come in) or right which promised to be shorter, but surface unknown.

 

I opted for the new shorter route & hoped it would only be no worse than this. Wrong!

About 100m down the hill, the road curved sharply right and suddently became a lot steeper - back in 1:3 territory. No backing out now though, it wasnt wide enough to turn around and even at the 4-5 mph I was doing, the ABS kept kicking in as the back wheel locked and I started to slide. Then I saw a hairpin bend ahead, covered in loose sand. I gently bought the bike to a halt, put my feet down, but it immediately slid another 18inches or so - scary stuff.

I remembered my off road training from Richard Jeynes at trailquest - a plan of action was needed as this corner had to be done in one go with no opportunity to adjust mid turn.

I couldnt move from where I was to walk the route (as we had done in the training) but studied the angles, bends and ruts that I could see & imagined what would be around the other half of the hairpin.

I fully expected to go down again and took this into account in the route so I would be in a relatively safe place when it happened and unlikely to go over the edge. I picked my line & there was nothing left but to go for it.

The tiger immediately started to pick up speed, which I tried to control with the back brake, sending the SBS stuttering as it fought to keep grip, Luckily my chosen rut & line did what I expected around the bend and a few seconds later I was round - only to see what was coming along next.

The track continued down steeply and in a straight line but then joined another road on the apex of its hairpin. The other road looked to be free of sand & so the issue was going to be if any traffic came round whilst I was approaching and I had to stop, which I wouldnt be able to. I figured though, by the time I was 20 feet or so away, I would be able to see any cars & decide either to put on the power & get there before they did, or unceremonoiusly drop the bike to avoid sliding into them.

Anyway, nothing came & I continued the jittery slide down until I felt the tyres bite on solid ground - phew!

The whole episode took no more than 15 minutes, but left so much adrenaline coursing round my veins, Ihardly noticed the next 2 hours on the toll road at all.

The road between Sapanca & Ankara was quite pleasant in parts, with views like this

 

After Ankara the lanscape changed to wide open plains or plateaus to be more precise. I didnt realise until I noticed it was a bit cooler and checked the sat nav, that it was beween 1200-1600m high (thats higher than any of the mountains in the UK) and it just went on and on and on ...

 

At one point I saw what looked like a white lake ... You can see it on the horizen just to the right of the telegraph pole in this picture

As I got closer I saw that it was salt flats, there was still water in the centre of the lake ..

 

And there was the salt bagging facility. It was a big lake & took nearly an hour to get past it.

I have since found out that Its actually called Lake Tuz and is one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world at 80km long with a total area of 1665 sq km and an altitude of 905m - so there you go!

 

 

Excitement over, the flat plains continued for another hour or so, until I reached Aksary which marked the turning point east to Goreme.

I faithfully followed the sat nav towards my next homestay, entering a picturesque village

It then took me round lots of tiny toads paved with slippery cobbles :-(

 

The place wasnt where it was supposed to be, so after a couple of circuits, I stopped & asked only to be told its in the next village about 15km away! It seems that the Garmin entry has the correct name, street & telephone number, but in the worng village with the wrong coordinates! Found it easily once that was sorted out.

So I went to check in, only to realise with horror that the owner at the previous homestay had not given me my passport back - oh bugger!

Well I wasnt about to ride the 8 hours back to get it & so a different solution was required. The host here very helpfully tried to sort it out, & came back later this evening to say it would be here the day after tomorrow, which if it is will be fine as I had planned to stay here 2 nights anyway.

Tomorrow is my first rest day after 13 continuous days on the road - whopee!

The day ended nicely when my host invited me to join his family for goergeous traditional dinner in their home, lovely.

So if you believe that trouble comes in 3's and 13 is an unluck number, then you also have to believe that every cloud has a silver lining. :-)

Night all.