To Destinations Unknown

[nick_the_fish]

Great photos Grant. Super envious of you guys entering Iran - have a brilliant time

 

[clivehorridge]

Fantastic journey Grant, so many places, I’m not surprised you can’t keep the diary up to date

Stay safe...

 

[chapel gate]

A feast for the eyes and taste buds.
Absolutely fantastic trip.
How's the 80 doing? Plenty of dash patting?

 

[SpinDrift]

This chicken is feeling left out

 

[grantw]

This chicken is feeling left out

View attachment 162783

He actually went cannibal and stole one of those wings, and then legged it knowing he might be on their next.

 

[grantw]

The random finds you make when exploring a city - this was the Martyrs monument in Konya, the building was so lovely we just thought we would have a look inside and found this amazing miniatures recreations of key times in Turkeys history, along with some pretty stunning mosaics.

 

[grantw]

Konya - cheap tasty meals, taking advantage of the free caravan park and having tea and a chat with the guards on duty, keeping warm now the cold nights are setting in. We can’t usually set up in a caravan park, so glad they had grass borders for us to peg into!

 

[grantw]

A feast for the eyes and taste buds.
Absolutely fantastic trip.
How's the 80 doing? Plenty of dash patting?

The 80 has been doing some great on some fairly brutal long roads - I have been loving going past the locals who are forced to a crawl over the really bad pot holed stuff.

We have had a few minor issues:
- start motor occasionally won't turn over. I think this is due to the 12v conversion and the cables now being too small. I've ran out of 35mm lugs to make new cables and haven't been able to source any others to prove that theory yet.
- Once she wouldn't start with not getting fuel. Embarrassingly a Pajero owner had come over to ask for a jump start. In the end she started after some fiddling with the fuel cut off solenoid on the pump. I've been waiting for this one to pop up again but after 3 months or so it has been a one off.

Other stuff has just been maintenance ... we've been through a full set of brake pads in around 17,000kms!

 

[grantw]

Found another bay to wild camp in, where we were welcomed by locals, Sarah got to practice speaking some French, watched a beautiful sunset and sunrise and we were adopted by a puppy for the night. Unfortunately the super windy conditions meant we packed up earlier than we wanted to, and hit the road in search of milder weather.

 

[grantw]

Sultanhani kervansaray - one of the largest caravanserais in the world, this old inn was used by travelling merchants along the Silk Road, it has been beautifully restored and was so incredible to explore.

 

[grantw]

Quick lunch stop - we were super hungry and finally found a restaurant that was open, only problem was no price list; certain we were going to be charged ‘tourist prices’ we were so surprised when the total bill (including tea) came to 25 lira (less than £4) - bargain! And the chicken kebab was soooo tasty!

 

[grantw]

Catalhoyuk - a short detour from Konya we found another UNESCO world heritage site. This amazing archeological site is ongoing, still excavating ruins that weresettled 9000 years ago. Over the centuries, these buildings were built one on top of the other using the foundations from the previous building, and access was from the roof; there are also recreations of these buildings showing what they would have looked like (definitely not Grant sized). It doesn’t seem to be a super well known tourist site, we were one of only three cars there! It was pretty amazing ... and free!

 

[grantw]

Lake Tuz - another spectacular wild camp; we set up without a soul around, but came back from our meanderings to find another camp trailer set up nearby, so of course we had to introduce ourselves! Turns out we had heard of them already at our last campsite and the boys had lots to talk about comparing trailer specs The next day we pottered around doing some trailer and car maintenance, but had to quickly pack up in the late afternoon when we heard thunder; if we didn’t escape, we were sure to get stuck

 

[grantw]

Salt flats fun - we wandered out into the salt lake, took a million photos and ended up with salty legs. A great end to a great day!

 

[grantw]

Cappadocia - thanks to @labopstap we found this pretty amazing campsite in the hills, where we parked a bit too close to the edge for Sarah’s comfort (see the grimace in pic 3!), but the view was incredible, and we and a few other overlanders with the same idea were all ready for a beautiful sunrise.

 

[grantw]

Hot air balloons! This has been on our list of places to visit for such a long time, we found an incredible wild camp and what an amazing view to wake up to! Wecouldn’t believe the number of balloons in the sky, and some were close enough to almost touch! What an incredible experience!!!

 

[grantw]

Derinkuyu underground city - our photos do not do justice to this amazing underground city, which we explored with what felt like half of Turkey on a public holiday You can explore eight of the potentially eighteen levels, (approx 280ft deep) which once housed around 20,000 people and their livestock.

 

[grantw]

Another picturesque wild camp by a lake, thunderstorm threatening we pulled over and set up quickly ready to wait it out. Although the rains came and dampened our fire, for a change the thunderstorm stayed away for a change. Beautiful location to wake up in!

 

[grantw]

Mount Nemrut (west terrace) - as we waited for the sun to set, it threw a glorious light onto the terrace statues.
A UNESCO world heritage site, this burial mound was created by King Antiochus around 62BC and is flanked by two terraces of statues, one facing the east and one the west; one for sunrise and one for sunset. These statues are enormous and it was incredible to see them up so close and imagine what they must have looked when they were first created.

 

[grantw]

Mount Nemrut (east terrace) - a UNESCO world heritage site, this burial mound was created by King Antiochus around 62BC and is flanked by two terraces of statues, one facing the east and one the west; one for sunrise and one for sunset. These statues are enormous and it was incredible to see them up so close and imagine what they must have looked like before the many earthquakes. We waited ages for the many other tourists to move over to the west terrace to be able to take these photos without anyone in them