Breakdown

It was a sad day when the van died! It’s been working perfectly for 5300 miles, then it decided to stop! We returned with our trolley of shopping, loaded the van and tried to start it in the supermarket car park… Starter motor and battery fine, but she just wouldn’t start. We tried in vain for some time. We even tried lifting the bonnet, looking at the engine and scratching our heads, but to no avail!

At this point we didn’t know what to do. Do they have breakdown services in Turkey…? How do we get towed…? We spoke to the lady at the info desk in the shopping centre and she called the VW garage, which happened to be 5 miles away! Within an hour the big red bus was winched atop a tow truck and we set off for VW.

Much to our surprise, the VW mechanics took seconds to start the van. They spent one hour doing checks with their computer and told us there was nothing wrong. In fact, according to their computer, the van was working perfectly! Perhaps it was just having a bad day. Then came the bill… Amazingly, they charged us £21.50 for the tow and all the checks were free! We even got free cups of tea! May have been more expensive in England…

We’ve since realised (through discussion with others) it was most likely that the immobilizer had disabled the fuel pump. We can only guess that driving through the deep ford got some electrics damp and upset the immobilizer in some way. All has been well since…

Escape

We had to leave Olympus to meet a friend (Harry) back at Geyekbayiri, however, the ford still looked quite high. We decided to make a bid for freedom. We tackled it with quite a lot of speed, and after lots of wheel spinning on the wet, rocky riverbed we made it through.

Stranded...

We are staying in a car park next to the Cirali beach, a short walk from Olympus. The car park is only accessible via a ford, which was very low on our arrival (see picture). However, it has since rained heavily for three days and the river has changed character greatly, making a crossing look quite risky! On the third day of heavy rain we noticed a car pull up in front of the river. Our instant reaction was to grab the cameras and run over to see if they were stupid enough to drive across a cloudy, torrent of water… They were that stupid! The car was only part way across, when the current spun the nose downstream and the occupants started to look very concerned. Fortunately, the car wasn’t quite deep enough to get washed away, and the occupants struggled out from the windows. The little girl was not happy and two guys seem to try and exit from the same window…? We soon dropped the cameras and tried to help pull the car from the river. Even with 10 people and a rope the car wouldn’t shift, so our Czech friend used their van to tow the car to dry land.
The river is currently just passable; however, it is raining again and looking like we may be stranded until the weather permits our passage back to Geyekbayiri…

Chimaera

There are many interesting attractions in the Olympos area; one of the more interesting has to be Chimaera. After a relaxing rest day we decided to hike the 5 km from Cirali up to the Chimaera. The Chimaera is a magical place where dozens of flames come up from the rocks lighting up the hill side, as we neared the area it looked as though the mountain was on fire. The flames are caused by methane gas escaping from the ground and are perfect for cooking your dinner on!

Climbing Paradise…?

We decided to visit another climbing area called Olympos. Olympos (about 1.5hrs from Geyekbayiri) is an old ruined city contained within a deep valley. Much of the ruins have been enveloped by the wildlife, but it is still a great place to wander through. Our main reason for visiting Olympos was to climb on Sector Cennet. We knew that Sector Cennet had some fantastic climbing on excellent rock.

We approached Sector Cennet via a rocky coastal path and turned a corner to get our first glimpse of this amazing crag. The crag was a perfect sheer face of multi-coloured limestone. It was streaked with, yellows, oranges, pinks, greys and purples and split by various cracks and weaknesses. The rock was steep and comprised everything from very steep slabs to slightly overhanging walls, with most routes in the French seventh grade. We warmed up on a F6b and soon realised that the rock demanded impeccable footwork on the small edges and smooth bumps.











Claire has found a great 7a project, which she has been practising for a red-point attempt. I managed to on-sight my first F7b, which I was very happy about! I’ve since fallen off another F7b, so not solid at the grade yet!

Bumps in the night.

For most of the trip we’ve tried to park in ‘free parking’ spots. However, at Geyekbayiri we opted to stay in a campsite to use warm showers and do laundry. On leaving the campsite we found a spot in a lay-by near the road. At around midnight we were awoken by the sound of a vehicle pulling up and the sound of a scrape/bang on the van, shortly followed by a further scrape/bang. We were of course quite concerned, especially after warnings at the border that it was dangerous to sleep in the van. We stayed still, not quite sure what to do, and soon after the vehicle pulled away.

We tried to relax and get back to sleep, but were awoken again by what sounded like the same vehicle. This time I was determined to discover who was outside. I threw some clothes on and pulled the side door open… The two men were wearing dark green uniforms and introduced themselves as the ‘Gendarme’. They wanted to see our passports and warned us that is was dangerous to sleep in the van. They said it was fine to stay in the van, but we’d be safer under a street light.

We’ve since discovered that it is a very safe area, and the police were probably just trying to scare into staying at an official campsite. We’ve seen them again since and they were very friendly. We’ve now found a great spot outside the ‘Climbers garden’ campsite where we can use the facilities for a small fee.

Incidentally, the noise was the police investigating a bag a chilled food on the van roof!

Dave, Dave, David…

So far in Turkey we’ve met many climbers but only got to know a few better. Strangely, they all share the same name. Is ‘Dave/David’ a really common name or do we just attach people of this name? Time will tell…

Projects

We’ve spent the first few weeks getting to know the crags and seeking the out the best climbs and potential projects [harder climbs to spend time practising, so that we can eventually climb them in one attempt without resting/falling]. The climbing here is generally steep and over-hanging, with a good mix of technical wall climbing and steep, powerful tufa climbing. We have faired better on the technical wall routes, but these are extremely sharp and crimpy and take their toll on the finger tips! We have tried the steep tufa climbing too, but it often ends in lots of swearing and falling off! We are not expert at tufas yet, but improving slowly!

Claire is climbing really well and has on-sighted [lead-climbed to the top without resting/falling, with no prior knowledge of the moves] her first F6c. She also has a F7b project she wants to red-point [lead-climb to top without resting/falling, after previous attempts practising the moves]. I’ve on-sighted F7a and have red-pointed F7b. I now have two F7b+ projects and am looking for a good F7c…

{This is another climber on one of my projects - he made it look slightly easier than I did!}

Knife wound

Claire had a slight accident when cutting cheese and decided to try and remove her thumb! Thankfully, her bone stopped the knife and she survived with just a deep cut. It has healed well now and she is continuing to climb unhindered.