We awoke at around 8 a.m. to a chilly but fine morning and broke camp. A 5 minute walk back downhill through the trees brought us out on a dirt road which led out to the tarseal road leading back to Bolu. We walked downhill for about 20 minutes before a dolmüs came along and took us all the way to Bolu. When we got to the bus station we booked a ticket out to Abant Golü then went and had some soup for brekkie. With two hours to fill in we sat in the sun watching locals watching us and ate cherries.
The trip up to Abant took about 45 minutes and we stayed aboard until we were ⅔ of the way around the lake, on the opposite side from the garish hotels built on the lakeshore for rich cats from Istanbul to holiday in. Linda and I left Kelly with the packs and set off to try and find an official campsite. We walked right around the lake and even went into the over-the-top-luxury Abant Palais Hotel to ask about campsites but (of course) they said there was no camping ground at the lake. On the way around the lake, we decided to head to Istanbul on Saturday and abandon the idea of camping as it is too hard.
After we had collected Kelly and our packs we found a place to light a fire and cooked a meal of pasta flavoured with tomato paste, onions, garlic and tomatoes then I spent a bit of time hiding in the bushes taking photos of a flock of sheep. Around 6:30 p.m. we climbed up into the trees and pitched the tent then set in a sunny clearing and watched the sun set behind the low hills on the far side of the lake. A chill came into the air so about 8:30 we got into the tent. We had only been settled in for about 10 minutes when the distant sound of sheep bells began to get louder. Within about 5 minutes the flock of sheep which I had been watching earlier was all around us on their way up the hill with three grinning shepherds walking behind them. They must have thought it was a great joke to find a tent full of white folks in the middle of their trail. I watched them disappear into the rapidly darkening forest then climbed back into our steeply slanted tent.
CurseOfTheTraveller 