At 6:10 a.m. we left the little restaurant behind and started walking back into town. It was misty and cold as we walked along the highway with the beautiful red of poppies growing amongst the crops beside the road. We got a lift the last 1 km into town to the otogar {bus station] which was closed so we’ll legged it back to the town centre. We had bread and honey for breakfast at a patisserie then hung around waiting for the information centre to open. When the tourism officer finally turned up he only spoke German but we got some information about the area and walked down the main street. Kelly went off to change money and Linda and I sat in the sun watching the local goings-on.
After we had bought some food we caught a dolmüs up to Golcük Lake where we were hassled by the guard for 5,000 each if we wanted to camp. There were no facilities there to justify the fee so he told the fat guard to get fucked. The lake was quite pretty so we left our packs at the toll gate and went for a walk around it. There must have been a million frogs in the weeds at the water’s edge and they kept up a constant racket as we walked along the path. We stopped for lunch at the far end of the lake then walked back and collected our gear and headed off down the hill.
After about 20 minutes we found a path leading off into the bush so we walked about 100 m into the cool, lush forest until we found a flat mossy patch of ground beside a tiny stream. We spent the afternoon sitting in a patch of warm sun shining down through a hole in the canopy, then at around 7:30pm, as the setting sun was throwing dappled patches of golden light through the trees, we pitched the tent and went to bed.
CurseOfTheTraveller 