I’ve arrived back in London after an awesome trip through Turkey. I should be getting prepared for my next adventure but instead I spent the day detailing nicks new car… almost looks brand new now! Well, almost- ha ha ha…

So, Turkey- awesome! I arrived late evening the morning before the tour started. I went along to the pub that the pre-departure meeting was held at and met a couple of people who were on the same tour as me. The tour left very early morning on 24 April. The bus, alongside tons of others, drove towards the Gallipoli battlefields. The line to get in hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I was there in 2006 except for the introduction of metal detectors and Turkish police/security checking bags- but there were still about 300 people in line ahead of us and this was at about 3pm!! We managed to get some space on the grass area and settle in for the night. I even managed to get some sleep in wearing every single item I had on me and cocooned in the sleeping bag. The service was really moving. I don’t think there are any words that can adequately describe thousands of people standing in complete silence for the last post so I will keep it at that! Afterwards we headed up to Lone Pine memorial service and wandered throughout the various cemeteries upon the way. There was a lot that I didn’t see in 2006 so I was happy to have been afforded another opportunity to see it all. Waiting for the bus was insane- there was over 100 buses and they would slowly move along the hill- there was a 10 minute window to get onto the bus before it was forced to leave.

We met most people on the tour after Anzac day. Everyone was really friendly and I reckon it was the best tour I’ve done in terms of people. We moved onto a little town, Ayvalik for an overnight stop. There wasn’t much there to see. We went for a walk before leaving in the morning down to the beach which was pretty grotty. Apparently the local Turks go there for holiday? God knows why.

That morning we headed to Pergamum to see ruins of a town in the hill back from roman times. It was really interesting seeing where the animals were kept for gladiator fights and the ruins of the amphitheatre. We headed to the seaside resort town of Kusadasi where we stayed for 3 nights. Everyone headed out to this Irish bar that is renowned for getting all the Aussie tourists in. It started with free t-shirt which said ‘Irish catholic girls- made to break rules- no jiggy jiggy’ and free shots- next thing it’s about 4am and I don’t have any recollection of getting back to the hotel in the taxi but apparently there was 4 of us in there?!

The next morning we headed to Ephesus which was the former capital of roman asia and saw one of the seven ancient wonders of the world- the temple of Artemis (which is one column- that’s all that is left- seriously!).

The following day we headed to Pamukkale, where you walk along this dirt track which has tombs from roman and Byzantine times along each side of the track. The road used to connect turkey to asia apparently. At the end of the track you reach these amazing calcium formations on the side of a hill. The water is warm and is meant to be therapeutic for arthritis or rheumatism. We then headed to this tiny village in the hills, Sirince, which was a former Greek colony. Apparently back in ottoman times there was a heap of Greeks living in turkey and Turks living in Greece so the higher powers made people move back to their respective country- whole colonies got up and moved overnight and turk families took over abandoned houses left by the greeks who were forced to move and vice versa. The village was a very different layout to what we had seen of typical Turkish and was really interesting. We did some wine tasting at this cute little bar that sold every type of fruit wine you could imagine; raspberry, blackcurrant, apple, peach, sour cherry- apple was by far the best and would be delicious in summer with ice! I wish they exported the stuff!

We headed to koycegiz where we stayed overnight- it was a cool little hotel and it would’ve been great to stay there a bit longer. It always seemed to be the way that they places we stayed for one night at the accommodation was sweet, but the places we stayed for three nights the shower wasn’t working, there wasn’t hot water, or there wasn’t any blankets. That night we caught a boat across Lake Koycegiz to have a mud bath and hot bath. There was a bit of an alcho punch bowl on the boat over so we were all pretty loud by the time we arrived, only to get ‘shooshes’ from the locals- then we realised they’d taken us to a resort that was closed and snuck us in! yet they kept serving us beers while we were in there- best service ever! Ha ha ha

We headed down to Fetiye the following morning which is this resort town on the coast via a Turkish carpet place. The place was a maze; we seriously couldn’t get out until someone in the group bought a $1,000 rug- b******s. Three people succumbed. Fetiye was gorgeous- we had an ace hotel and lots to do- I went paragliding the first morning off this huge mountain. To put things into perspective it was 30 degrees on the beach; freezing point at the top of the mountain- we passed snow on the hour drive up there. I freaked not because I was about to jump off a cliff with a parachute but from the track on the way up. We were in an open back truck going up this steep mountain on a rugged track which had about, oh, maybe an inch if your lucky between the tires and a cliff the whole way up. All it would’ve taken is one person to move to the other side of the back and unbalance the weight in the back and we would’ve gone- but- on the up side; once you got up there, there was no other option but to jump with the parachute as I sure as hell wasn’t going down in that truck. When I got to the bottom I was chatting to one of the locals who was saying there is one other place that you can go from which is about another couple of hundred metres up and he said that is where its really scary as the road is ice the whole way up! Argh! Still; we were trip number 1 of 5 up there the driver would make that day so he’d be used to the track we figured. There was five of us doing the jump so we all got prepped up; strapped to a Turkish man with a parachute and told to run off the edge of the cliff. No landing instructions; they said they will worry about that when we are closer to landing (i.e. in the air). So off we ran; one of the girls parachutes didn’t open properly and the poor gal got to the edge of the cliff and had to stop and do it again!! Once we were off it was the best adrenaline rush ever- apparently it is one of the best places in the world to do it. We were gliding for about 30-45 minutes before landing just in front of the beach- best views ever; the bloke did all these acrobatic moves which send you spiralling to the earth- way better than any roller coaster I’ve been on! Later that day we went on a day cruise around the 12 islands of Fetiye. It was a nice trip but started to get a little chilly by the end. The lady in charge of the boat was the most annoying s*** in the world- constantly on about trying to sell drink, food and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Her happy hour on beers was 50 cents off the already hugely inflated price?! That’s not a bloody happy hour special! There were lots of gorgeous spots where we all jumped off the top of the boat into the clear water, and lots of random games played on the top of the deck.

We headed down the coast the following day and stopped at this secluded little beach, Kaputas beach before stopping in Kas for a few hours. Kas was a gorgeous little village which sort of reminded me of a Greek village (not that I’ve anywhere in Greece except for Crete- so maybe it reminded me of that?!).

We then drove on to Olympus. We stayed in this really cool little hippy tree house village there. It was a secluded area in the middle of these huge mountains with not much but one road with tree house communities on each side and a single track that went down to the beach. Along the track were ruins from Byzantine times that you could walk around- it was really cool! We chilled out here for a few days. One day I did absolutely nothing and just watched movies on the ipod and read a book which was mega relaxing.

We headed on for an overnight stop at a tiny little village by Lake Edgir, which is the largest lake in turkey. There wasn’t much at the village, but the hostel did have TV, and we found a channel with desperate housewives and holly oaks in English, so we were sorted for the evening!

A lot more driving took place was we headed further east towards Cappadocia. This was where I wanted to go most on the trip because I’d read so much about the rock formations and caves etc. It was totally breathtaking and bizarre. I did a hot air balloon ride the first morning which involved getting up at 4.45am to ensure we got there in time for the sunrise! It was a great experience but unfortunately it was a bit misty and foggy that morning so didn’t get the best photos, and it didn’t seem quite as exciting after getting the adrenaline rush of paragliding. That day we headed down to the underground city and some of the famous rock caves which were former monasteries and climbed around them getting lots of great pics. We had three nights in Cappadocia which was nice as it gave some opportunity to chill out. We were staying in a cave which was really cool- our room had been there for over 300 years we were told. It was pretty haunting but awesome. The last night we headed out to a Turkish folklore night, which included heaps of traditional dancing like belly dancing and random dances by these Turkish blokes- if it was traditional dancing they were doing that’s totally where hip hop and break dancing originated from!

The following morning with a sore head, we all headed onto the bus for the dreaded 12 hour plus drive back to Istanbul. We stopped at the capital, Ankara on the way to visit the Anitkabir Mausoleum of Attaturk. We said our goodbyes to the tour in Istanbul but there were a few people staying back extra days like I was so there was plenty to do. We headed to the grand bazaar and walked over the bridge to the other side of the Bosporus to see a whole other part of Istanbul I didn’t know existed. It was very modern and you could tell it was definitely on the European side- we found the main shopping strip which had top shop- whoo hoo!!

I’m about to go for a bike ride along the beach down here at shoreham. Can I say what I am most excited about to be back tho- NO MORE EGGS, BEER, OR WHITE BREAD- YAHHH!!! Thank god.