Leaving Ankara was a pleasant affair, knowing we had 3 days of cycling ahead until the highly anticipated region of Cappadocia was great.

The roads were big but uncrowded. It was fairly hilly, sometimes taking an hour or 2 to summit, topped with temperatures reaching 40 degrees celcius.

After a week of relaxing we were exhausted after the first days ride.

We camped for free each night on our way. The first under a abandoned building next to a lake. No need for the tent rain cover!

The second was behind a roadside restaurant. We chose here as we could use their bathroom facilities.

The landscape eventually opened out as we got within 40miles of our destination. One last big 5%  7km downhill provided a lot of fun.

You may notice a plastic bag on the back of my bike. As we had lunch earlier that day by the roadside a lady approached us and offered us some plums from her front garden. We gladly accepted.

That night we stewed them up and added a touch of honey. Sugar overload!!! Delicious…

Our third night camping was on a cliffside, the sunset that night was rather nice.

When the sun had completely gone the stars on show were incredible. That night I saw 2 shooting stars and a few orbiting satellites. A night to remember. Barry experimented with a few long exposure camera shots which turned out well.

We reached our destination early on the 4th day.

We stayed in a hotel in a town called Goreme. It was pleasant and cheap.

We had hoped to do a sunrise hot air balloon ride but unfortunately the conditions weren’t right so had to miss out.

Instead we opted to go hiking for 2 afternoons which turned out to be a real adventure. The first time we made the mistake of taking our bikes with us, we still had a lot of fun though.

I will now post a selection of photos of this wierd and wonderful area. Enjoy!

Our journey now continues to north east Turkey and into Georgia. We will be hitting the D915, uncommonly known as the most dangerous road (for cars, mum) in the world! (not to be compared with the death road in Bolivia made popular by Top Gear).

I plan to make the blog post in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, at the end of the month.