29th July - 6th August 2022
When telling friends we were heading off on a motorbike trip around Southern Turkey they called us crazy, not because we were attempting some daredevil mission, but because of the August heat we were going to have to endure. And they were right, stepping off the plane in Antalya wearing our shorts the heat hit me, Jo, Piers, and Dave like a hot hair dryer. The thought of spending a week in full motorbike kit suddenly became a bit daunting.
We had chosen southern Turkey as an adventure location as it sits in the golden zone where renting motorbikes isn’t extortionately expensive, and flights aren’t uncomfortably long. Dave and I had spent a week in Turkey on a trip to China previously, and we knew it had a lot to offer so I set about looking through maps, google satellite images, and street view putting together the ultimate 8 day long motorbike adventure.
Day 1
Picking up the bikes was an unsurprisingly sweaty affair. But we fought through it to pack our bags onto the back of 3 XT660s and a CRF250 Rally. We set our compasses (google maps) for North and headed straight for the mountains in search of cooler weather and dirt tracks. We only succeeded in finding one of these, and the roads quickly turned from asphalt to gravel. About an hour and a half outside of Antalya threads Koprulu Canyon National Park, here there is an amazing loop through woods, rocks, canyons, hills - the lot. We even managed to stop at a Roman amphitheater to take some pictures whilst being chased by the local souvenir touts as if it were an ancient sport.
We had picked up some camping food from a local market, so we followed this circular route into the evening until we found an empty field to pitch our tents. With lots of mosquitoes for company, we tucked into the 2 bottles of Jamesons we’d bought at the airport whilst Jo put together the blandest meal east of the Bosphorus.
Day 2
We woke up to a cruel lesson which should never have needed to be learnt. Not only had we depleted our 2 litres of whisky, in our reverie we’d also finished off all of our water during the night. We packed up our tents, giving each other accusatory glances - nobody wanting to take responsibility for finishing the last of our water supplies. As such the morning’s mission was to rehydrate, luckily Turkey provided sooner than we wilted. This is clearly a country with a zest for aqua. Every 10km or so on any road, anywhere in Turkey you’ll find a tap for drinking water. Like animals at a drinking whole we gulped down litres of the stuff, filled up our bottles and were on our way.
We stopped off briefly for some pictures at the actual Koprulu Canyon before powering on through to our next point of interest a couple hour’s ride east, on the way we had to arrange to swap Jo’s XT660 with another as his radiator was steaming over and the bike was overheating. On the way we traveled through some dirt tracks that were built by Turkey’s answer to the forestry commission. We passed through miles and miles of ugly deforestation before finally breaking through their grip on the landscape into a beautiful green plain surrounded by mountains. Here there was a ruin of stables that dated back to the Roman times. We took an unnecessary detour across the plains, purely for the fun of kicking up dust with no tracks to bound us.
The combination of not showering for 2 days, and living in our sweaty motorbike gear meant that we needed to push on to a lake to spend the night. We arrived there early in the evening and before pitching our tents found a restaurant which had a slide and a diving board into the water. Washing never felt so good, and I'm sure the locals were slightly surprised by how enthusiastically 4 grown men threw themselves down a children’s slide and into the lake. After eating we biked in the dark to a quiet spot near the water’s edge to spend the night. Perhaps too near the water’s edge. For some unknown reason the lake’s water levels moved about 1m upshore almost soaking me and Dave whilst we slept. Luckily Jo noticed this when waking during the night and gave the warning so we could shuffle back to safety. The silver lining to this was that we got to witness the sun rising over the lake before catching another hour’s sleep.
Day 3
We woke up excited on day 3. Our route pointed us towards the Geyik Mountains, an area which my research suggested resembled the mecca of adventure motorbiking - Mongolia. To get there, we had to take a series of winding dirt roads that climbed away from our lake. Soon enough we hit problems however, turning a corner we found the road had been completely upended by some pipelayers. There was no way even our bikes could get past. The turkish workers pointed back the direction we came and to take a left to go over the ridge we were trying to skirt around.
This is where things really started to go wrong, we took our left turning too early and headed up a forestry track by accident. In doing so we entered a labyrinth of routes that would get more and more tricky to ride before eventually coming to a dead end. At one point we even had to move a tree trunk off our path only to find the road stopped completely 100m later. After putting ourselves and our bikes through hell, we eventually took the sensible option of returning to the beginning and asking for more directions. Lo and behold 10 minutes later we were back on track and heading the right way.
After the most rewarding lunch of soup, chicken skewers, kofte and the obligatory turkish tomoto and cucumber salad we found ourselves at the feet of the Geyik mountains. As we climbed, the roads worsened (in a good way), taking us into an absolutely stunning area of green valleys, small lakes, rocky mountains and charming villages. This was exactly the type of scenery we had been looking for, in fact it surpassed all of our expectations. A great interlude of the afternoon involved us meeting a beekeeper who convinced us that getting close to his hives to see his honey was a good idea. That encounter ended with all of us running back to our bikes to escape an angry swarm, jo and I both getting stung twice. We then arrived at a small, flat lake that reflected the evening sun onto the mountains around us. We smugly pitched our tents and Jo cooked a redemption supper of blood sausage and beans.
Day 4
For the first time of the trip, we had found weather that suited us. We slept comfortably (despite being extremely unpopular with some local shepherd dogs) and woke without being baked by the sun in our tents. As we cooked breakfast a herd of goat and sheep were driven through our campsite and we soon met the local shepherds and a dog that was far too soft to be responsible for the drive by barking we got in the night.
We were soon given the full experience of amazing Turkish hospitality, invited into their home with their family for tea, coffee, and breakfast. The Turk’s are an incredibly friendly bunch, always going above and beyond to make conversation, help out, and to make you feel welcome.
The scenery never failed to amaze us, and the roads always matched the epicness of the vista around them, winding through wide open valleys and hills. We travelled further east, and despite getting lost along the way once again found ourselves in a beautiful, but far more arid open plain near a village called Dumlogoze. We spent a comfortable night drinking whisky and looking at the milky way as the night sky shone above us.
Day 5
Dave and Piers were due to leave us on the 6th day, so we were limited with how far east we could continue. Having enjoyed being at the centre of the Geyik mountains so much, we decided to head back to that area via a different route so as to avoid retracing too many steps. We had a slightly more relaxing day with roads that were less challenging, and less kilometres to travel. On our journey we discovered the joy of Lahmacun - a turkish take on pizza that takes the form of spiced lamb and finely chopped veg on flatbread, truly delicious. We thoroughly enjoyed turkish food, although to be fair they don’t offer much in terms of variety. Every meal consists of some sort of spiced grilled meat, accompanied by the same tomato, cucumber, onion, parsley salad. Delicious, but slightly repetitive. We never quite got to grips with how much each meal should cost us, and we strongly suspect we were playing hefty ‘tourist tax’ in some establishments as meals ranged from 150 lira(£7.50) and 600 lira (£30) between the four of us.
On our return to the Geyik mountains, we stopped off in a village to fill up our water bottles. Here one of the village elders recommended we go somewhere, the trick was to find out where. With the language barrier we assumed through his charades that he was telling us to visit a waterfall. We were a bit suspect, as we hadn’t seen enough water anywhere in Turkey to warrant that kind of water feature. We decided to give his directions a go regardless, and set off on our way. We certainly didn’t find a waterfall, and whether we understood his directions incorrectly or not (very likely) we did end up finding a truly stunning, green valley with a large plain interspersed with herds of goat and sheep. We had great fun speeding our bikes through the dust up and down this valley until we found a little nook to set up our tents in. Jo had grown confident in the cooking department and delivered a delicious meal of honey fried chicken with mashed potatoes and garlic mushrooms, a true delight.
Day 6
Sadly it was time to say goodbye to Piers and Dave who were both called back to the UK on other business. Jo and I escorted them back to Antalya, and back into the oppressive coastal heat. Feeling a bit tired and cranky after 5 nights camping (although perhaps 5 nights of whisky were to blame) Jo and I felt a bit of a break was in order and booked ourselves what we thought was quite a nice airbnb in a coastal town 2 hours south of Antalya. We arrived there and basked in the air conditioning, soft beds with clean sheets and most importantly a shower.
Day 7
We thought a day off the bikes was in order, and spent some time out on a kayak visiting a tiny beach around the corner of the bay. However, we just couldn’t enjoy ourselves in the heat, and the coastal town turned out not to be quite as quaint as we had thought. After a relaxing morning and lunch the motorbikes beckoned us again like the sirens in the iliad. We decided the only thing for it was to retreat back to the mountains and set up camp again.
We set off mid afternoon and found a lovely lake in the hills near a town called Ucarsu. Its amazing how Turkey can take you from a busy city, beach, motorway to suddenly being on dirt tracks and by mountain lakes in such a short time. Not far from our campsite was a small restaurant that served us up some goat kebab where we had an amazing view of the mountains, and even a view of the goat herd our dinner had come from.
Day 8
According to google our route from the previous day ended at the lake where we had camped, but with a little closer look at google satellite images we found that it carried on over the mountains and down to some towns on the other side. I’m glad we took the risk of going ‘off grid’, because we were treated to some really lovely countryside. It was about this time we realised just how much of a lifestyle the mountain Turks led. A lot of them appeared to come up here in the summer to tend to their goats on a seasonal basis, all appeared incredibly happy and I assume a lot of it is to do with living a slower pace of life amongst nature. It wasn’t uncommon to see local men, sat on a chair under a tree, just watching the world go by, not looking bored but pensive and content. I’m surprised there aren’t more famous Southern Turkish philosophers.
Jo and I headed back closer to Antalya, camping in the hills to the west near a town called Saklikent. It was perfect, a stunning sunset above the clouds where we could sleep sound knowing we were only an hour and a half from our final destination, the end of the trip and our flight home.
I couldn’t recommend turkey more as a motorbike destination, we covered only about 30% of all the places I had researched, and throughout our 9 days we never ventured much further than 3 or so hours from Antalya. There is so much for us still to explore. Its the wildest motorbiking or traveling I've had the pleasure of doing since I travelled to China, and parts of the trip truly did feel other worldly. I definitely do not exaggerate when I say that it mimicked parts of Tajikistan, even making us feel like there was less of a need to travel the extra miles to Mongolia for a separate trip. But whilst the scenery provides so much, the people and culture are the jewel in the crown. The Turks are just such friendly and welcoming people, you simply feel obliged to come back and see the rest of it.