Day 2 – March 18th 06 – Olmypos – Kumluca – Kumluca (42 miles, +570m)
We left Olympos at around 9.30 this morning and after a few km of flat road we began the climb back up to the main road, this time without having to ford the river as we were on a different road (the road we probably should have came in on last night). The climb was a steady gradient and around 8 miles long, winding past houses and small farms. We reached the top in around an hour and crossed over to join the main road and noticed an old man selling oranges. This was a good place to stop for a rest, so we wrapped up as the temperature had dropped due to the altitude and feasted on the most beautiful tasting oranges I’ve ever eaten (and they cost next to nothing).
After about 30mins we got back on our bikes and descended about 8 miles into Kumluca and back into the warm air. We bought some lunch of bread, sausage and cheese and cycled out of Kumluca, accompanied by an annoying little kid on a bike who kept asking for money (a very rare occurrence).We found a lunch spot a few km out of town, just before the next big climb of the day. After lunch we began the climb, again it was a steady gradient, rising up 350m to a lake. By the lake were some goat herders and many goats and they gave us the standard wave and smile as we rode past
After the lake we headed up through a beautiful river valley and after a few miles we passed a lovely spot, so decided to camp out, we had no tents, but the weather was looking good, the spot had a plenty of wood and fresh water and we had a enough food on us for a decent evening meal – sorted! We unpacked all our gear and proceeded to assemble the most important part of our camp, the shelter you may think, no, the fireplace!
After a while we got a nice fire going, we were chilling out around the camp then it started, a few drops of rain were in the air and on looking up we could see our nice blue sky had turned distinctly grey. We built a shelter as fast as we could from sticks, zip ties, a survival blanket and a piece of rotten plastic sheet we found. The shelter wasn’t too bad, and would keep the rain off three upper bodies; I had a bivvy bag, so at that time wasn’t particularly concerned. The rain then got harder and we had to water proof up and get under the shelter and cook some food which we did after packing our kit away in our panniers to protect it from the ever hardening rain. We cooked our dinner and ate under a leaky shelter, the rain was now coming down hard and lightning flashes filled the sky, it was then we made a group decision to abandon the camp and get back on our bikes and ride in the pitch black the 15 miles or so back to Kumluca, which we did so with just our head torches and the lightning flashes to light our way.
After about an hour of fairly easy riding, mostly downhill, we arrived back in Kumluca about 9pm. We managed to find a pub (we have a knack for this) and after parking our laden bikes outside, with the owner of the pub promising not to let the bikes out of his sight, we relaxed with a few beers, dried ourselves out and munched on nuts and plates of fresh fruit salad. The owner kindly booked us into a nearby hotel room; we thanked him and set off to find the hotel which we did after a few minutes searching.
We had a room between all 4 of us, we whacked up the heating and hung our dirty, wet clothes out to dry filling the room with pungent odours and returned to the ‘pub’ for a couple more beers. We chatted with the locals who gave us good information about roads surfaces, gradients and accommodation options (so we would not need to camp again) and we were then treated to an uplifting weather report by the pub ‘oracle’ who promised us there would be “no rain” a point he enforced with a swift movement of his hands – we believed him. And as it turned out he was bang on.
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