There was, according to our guidebook, a very nice historic river town a day and a halls ride away. We figured then that if we did a good day of cycling today we could reach this town (called Amasya) by lunchtime tomorrow and spend the rest of the day and evening there.
With this in mind we set off from Sorgun early, doubling back on ourselves a bit through The city to get on the right road of town, the the would lead to Eymir. This was again similar to what we had been riding over the last few days: undulating steppe. But this time, with one difference. After a long initial climb from the top we could see in front of us not the same sort of flat land continuing until the horizon but mountain peaks! We were reaching the end of the Anatolian Steppe.

   
 It was out of Eymir, a small town situated at the foot of the mountains the the climb over them began. We were expecting a long mountain pass the we would have to spend most of the afternoon climbing but we had forgotten one important thing: We were already 900m above sea level, these peaks we just the lip of the plateau in which the steppe rested. It was only a short (but steep) ride up to the top and then a lovely long and fast road down; off the peak, out of the plateau and into a town called Aydinik.

   

 It was lunchtime now and we were looking for somewhere to eat. We were stopped at a crossroads near the center to get our bearings and a car pulled up to us. A man poked his head out and said (in perfect English) “Do you need help?” We told him we’re just looking for somewhere to eat and he responded “you want something to eat? Follow me.” He took us to a nearby cafeteria that was packed out (good sign) order us some food and then, as soon as he had joined he said goodbye and was gone again.
The lunch was good (beef kebab with rice) and set us up well for the afternoon ride which was a bit more difficult than the morning.

   

   
We were definitely out of the stepped now and in a more mountainous region. The road, instead of just cutting straight across the landscape followed the rivers that cut into the mountains. Our route followed a river according to the map, but it was late in autumn now and not much rain had fallen since spring so it was all dried up. There was also a lot of road works going on. We were following a river upstream to a town called Ortaköy. Most of the way there the road was still under construction and was covered in large rocks that made the going s bit slow and tough.
We got to Ortaköy a bit later than expected but the road out was downstream(and finished) so it was much easier leaving Ortaköy than getting there. It wasn’t too long until we reached Göynücek which marked the end of our ride, given that Amasya was now only 50km away. After eating in town we rode for a short distance out until we came to an empty lot between the fields that filled the roadside where we camped for the night.

  

More riding over the Anatolian Steppe today and so quite similar to what we did yesterday, for the most part. We still had the tailwind helping us along and the land was still vast and mostly empty. The roads again fluctuated from old sealed Tarmac to rock and dirt, seemingly at random sometimes. Turnip harvesters and shepherds moving their flock punctuated the landscape.  
There are some days on tour that you are just resigned to being, not exactly bored but not exhilarated or excited during either. Sometime not much interesting happens and it’s just a day of peddling through similar scenery you road through yesterday. This may have been true today of not for that one factor you can’t predict: who you end up meeting.
At lunch we pulled into the rather rundown and grim town of Osmanpasa once again (like most of these small towns we pass through out in the country) seemingly enirely populated by moustachioed old men. There was one small store where we picked up bread for lunch and the cycled down to some benches at the other end of the main street to eat.
While we were eating a white minivan pulled up. These minivans are really common all over Turkey and seems to be the primary mode of transport for s lot of people to get between the towns and cities out in the country. Anyway, the driver of the minivan rolls down the window and a bespectacled guy, maybe late thirties pokes his head out the window and shots “Çay?” We didn’t want to be rude, and a nice cup of tea is always welcome so we got on our bikes and followed.
He led us back down to where we bought the bread and next to it, to a building with a couple of guys hanging around outside it and a round table with chairs out front. We sat down and started to chat, as best we could, with our new friend and his two friends who had presently joined us.
We got as far as we could with gestures, hand signs and what little English and Turkish we could scrounge up between us. Hassan (the name of this friendly bus driver) took out his phone and started typing away in a translate app. When he finished he turned the screen to us with the translated sentence and…we could understand it. At least, not immediately. The app had definitely translated the Turkish sentences to something else but we weren’t sure what until it suddenly dawned on us. We were looking at Irish! 
After explaining (through a translate app of our own) that we spoke English mainly and having a good laugh between ourselves at the mix up there followed a google translate conversation of passing phones back and forth. Hassan started talking about some local landmarks, and once we finished our tea he got us to follow him to one. It was just across the road and was the town Mosque.
What we learned from Hassan who was now our impromptu tour guide was that the modern mosque was built around and using some of the original stone from the original 13th century building. In one annex stood three large, elevated coffins covered in green drapes. These were the tombs of a 13the century Sultan, his mother and army chief. Apparently the mosque had some healing powers and visitors would come in the hopes of a cure.
Hassan gave us a tour around the mosque and small grounds and then invited us back for more çay, though at this stage we had to be going again. We thanked him for the tour, which he said it was his duty to give us as the Bashčan of the mosque, which I don’t think is a religious position, more like a caretaker.
The road out of Osmanpasa was more rocky roads over the steppe. There were a few long climbs and descents up and down into small villages. We figured if we could reach Sorgun, the closest city, before dark we could get some food there and camp at a gas station and be in a good position to strike out further north tomorrow.

 

 
Sorgun was situated on a main road and so to reach it we had to find our way back to it, off the small country tracks we were riding on. It took a bit longer then we wanted, taking a wrong turn added a few extra kilometres to the journey but as soon as we found the main road we made great time, back on relatively flat, properly paved surface again.
At Sorgun, a large and not particularly pretty or interesting town, we got some dinner. Then we rode until we came across a gas station with a grassy area where we could camp. We found one with a nice area out back, but it belonged to the restaurant attached to the station. We asked the guys that worked at the restaurant and they said it was no problem. As we were wheeling the bikes around an older guy came out and ran over to us, he was the manager and spoke a bit of English. He confirmed it was ok to sleep there and then invited us into the restaurant for dinner on the house!
We gratefully accepted and ate a tasty second dinner and then went around the back of the restaurant to sleep.

  

It was time to leave Avanos. On the morning of departure we awoke to rain pattering on the tarp. We hauled it and our gear under the shelter by the pool and waited for the tarp to dry off (so it wouldn’t be wet when we packed it away) and the rain to ease off. Fortunately it didn’t stick around all day and we were cycling out of Avanos after a shop and some food at 11. 

 
Riding out of the Cappadocia basin started, naturally, with a bit if climb. Once up on the top we were back on the Anatolian Steppe with land stretching off for miles in every direction. The scenery isn’t all that interesting but I think just the vastness of it all gives it a beauty of its own. We reach the top of a hill and as far as you could see was just land, like a great sea, uninterrupted by towns or forests just horizon to horizon was land.

  
 

 
Without an geographical feature to stop it the wind was howling something fierce. But it was blowing our backs, in the perfect direction to push us along all day. It made the riding go by really quickly and before too long we arrived at the roadside town of Kalaba. Here we went looking for some food to eat and got led to a döner place run by a really friendly husband and wife, the husband was beaming the whole time we were in his eatery. 
Leaving Kalaba with full bellies we rode on, up and down the gradual undulation of the landscape and through tiny hamlet, some populated and some abandoned. The road turned from sealed Tarmac to exposed rock and dirt as we got deeper into the back country and further from the main routes. Some guys we passed at a crossroads called out to us saying we were going the wrong way, but only because the road was so remote they didn’t expect we really wanted to ride it.

  
With the wind at our backs we made great time, but there was one problem: this wide open landscape offered little in the way of good camping spots. Every now and then an irrigation channel would provide water enough for a small stand of trees to grow along side it but most of the time there were very few places we would want to camp at.

  
We got lucky though, riding out of the last town we would pass through today (Yamacli) and on the lookout for somewhere to stop we came down into a small valley with flat ground and sheltered from the wind by the small hills and few trees dotted around us. Although we were camped quite close to the road and relatively exposed, none of the trucks or tractors that passed seemed to mind our being there. 

  

The ride from Kirsehir to Avanos wasn’t half as eventful as the previous days. Mostly because the we were back on the highway so it was a bit more difficult, and we were given less opportunity to, stop and hob nob with locals. 
I got a flat tyre, which I suppose is a bit eventful. But this time there was no pick up truck to give me a lift back to Finn, though he hadn’t ridden to far ahead this time.
So it was fast but less interesting highway riding for most of the day. Lunch in a town called Gülsehir where we came across a guy with a bit of English who claimed to be friends with some famous Turkish cycle tourist. The up a big hill and down into the basin that held most of the region of Cappadocia. 

  
  
Cappadocia is famous for its unique landscape of tall rock spires, forest of them almost and ancient Byzantine settlements carved into them, especially the churches whose frescoes have been preserved perfectly in the well sheltered and neutral climate. We didn’t see the best on offer today, though we did pass a small example along the side of the road of what was to come.

  
There are a few small towns are out the Cappadocia region to stay at, we chose to stay in Avanos, a nice town on a river that had a very friendly, family run campsite that we pulled into around four. 

It was still raining when we woke up, not heavily but just that sort of misty rain that can get you wet without noticing. We packed up camp and went off in search of some bread for breakfast with gloves on while riding for the first time on the trip. 
 

 

We pulled into the small town of Karginyenice that had a store where we picked up bread and ate it out in the square. It was dry now and there were plenty of people milling about the town. Actually there was plenty of old men milling about, we didn’t see any young guys or woman at all. A few of the guys came up to us to chat, some spoke German or French but none English.
The morning ride was up high in the steppe and once the clouds cleared we got a good view ahead of the big lake Hirfanli where we planned to stop for lunch. The roads were still small, quiet tertiary roads across the barren hills, every now and then we’d pass some shepherds with their donkeys, flock and sheepdogs. One guy had a particularly mean looking pack of sheepdogs that he had to shout down from chasing us along the road. 

 

 
The road went from nice sealed Tarmac to sandy gravel for a while over the top of the hills and then back to Tarmac as we started to freewheel down to the lake. Arriving in the town of Toklümen on the banks of the lake we set about looking for somewhere to get food for lunch.

  
There was one small shop in town manned by two young guys. They were out of bread and didn’t really have much else to eat except for some snacks. After a bit of google translate conversing we found out there was one place in town where you could get a meal. In a picnic area by the lake was a small kitchen in a portacabin and some guy in town would come down and cook fish from the lake if you called him up. The guys from the shop called him for us and we went out to the picnic area, maybe a km outside town to wait on the guy.

 

 
We were waiting a while before anyone showed up. Someone pulled up in a car, but this wasn’t the fish cook it was a Turkish couple on holidays themselves. The dude called up the number painted on the side of the portscabin to get the fish guy to come down. He then chatted with us for a bit and asked if he and his girlfriend could have a go on our bikes, to ride along the lake for a bit. No problem, we said and even took a few photos for them too.
The fish guy arrived shortly after and grabbed two fish swimming in a basin by the lake and cooked them up there and then. It was delicious (or, in Turkish: Nefis!). As they were leaving the Turkish couple came over and said they had kindly paid for our meal! 
As tasty as lunch had been, we had spent about three hours not cycling. We were hoping to get to the city of Kirsehir this evening, and we could still make it we just had to keep riding as the sun set and then through the dark for a bit. On the road from Toklümen weasel through a couple of small settlements. At one of these an old guy, who must have been watching us approach from some distance, beckoned us over and after a little tug on our beards, demanded to know (at least we guessed, it was all in Turkish) just what the hell was going on. We soon got the point across and they (for we had now been joined by the rest of the guys from the village as well as some of the kids) were very interested. We chatted (gestured, mostly) for a bit and then had to get going as daylight was fading.

  
So it was maybe 90 minutes that we arrived in Kirsehir after this encounter. Kirsehir was surprisingly big with a busy high street where we picked up some dinner. We then cycled a short way out of town and found a petrol station with a nice grassy area to camp at and called it a day.

Today was an exciting day, if we had read the map and planned the route correctly we would be riding on a road that wasn’t a highway today which would be a first for our journey across Turkey, even the mountain roads between Istanbul and Ankara had technically been highways and had quite a lot of trucks using them as a result. 
First though we had to reach this fabled tertiary road. That involved a long but relatively easy climb up to the town of Bala. The landscape here reminded me largely of the landscape that we rode into Istanbul through, rolling farmland, though maybe the hills were a bit steeper.

 

 
Bala was a great little town full of very excitable people. Most of them were very ok eased to see us and when we stepped into one of the two restaurants in town for lunch everybody there (it was packed out) gave us a good long stare. But not in any malicious way, I’d reckon not a lot of foreign pass through Bala. Lunch was great, a tasty and cheap kebab. We also got to witness local political canvassing as some politician burst into the restaurant and started making a short speech.
Leaving Bala we passed by two young guys next to a scooter in need of a screwdriver. We lent them one of our multitools which they were very grateful to receive, and then proceeded to use it to take the license plate off the vehicle. Not entirely sure what was happening there…

 

 
After this encounter we arrived at the turn off for the small road. If we had read the map correctly we could follow small roads like this from village to village until we were within a day’s ride of our destination: Cappadocia. The we would have to get back on main roads.

 

 
Until then though, we had lovely quiet riding. After making the turn off the traffic eased off almost entirely. The road ran for a long time downhill toward a river giving us ample time to take in the landscape which wasn’t quite plains and not entirely hilly. I guess you’d call it steppe country and it was easy to imagine Mongol boards galloping from horizon to horizon (which they would have, the Turks via the Ottomans being ultimately descended from a Mongol tribe). 

   
  

 
We soon came into the town of Kesikköprü, a nice little place built on the only bridge that crossed the river. Around this time of day we usually pick up some bread for breakfast in the morning but every shop in the place (three of them!) was sold out. One of the shopkeepers asked us where we were going tonight, we named the next town and he was clearly unimpressed. “Why?” was his only response.

 

 
So we left the town breadless and crossed the river to continue on. The road turned from sealed Tarmac to sandy gravel and the small villages we passed through were more shack than house bit everybody smiled and waved, especially the kids who were always excited to see two bozos on bikes riding through there village.
We were quite high up now and there were few trees or bushes. There had been dark clouds on the horizon all day,and we had been fortunate enough to stay out of them but with darkness closing in it was time to find somewhere somewhat sheltered to camp for when they arrived as they were surely blowing our way. We found a stand of trees growing by an irrigation ditch just off the road.
We wheeled over and started setting up the tarp as the wind began to blow stronger. At one point we noticed a shepherd watching us from a hill with his flock around him. He came down to say hi, a friendly chap and helpful too, he told us (gestured, mostly) that there was a house a ways away if we followed the drainage ditch uphill. We were pretty much set up now so we decided to stay, but it was good to know that the option was there as the wind was blowing stronger and stronger.
Once the rain arrived though the wind eased off and the rain was quite light but persistent throughout the night. 
  

Long ride today into the capital of Turkey but a fun one with some new characters. It was a bit sad to leave our spectacular campsite behind but we had miles to go and couldn’t hand around too much. The spectacular scenery around Sariyar Baraji dissipated quickly and it was back into the rolling sandstone hills – still lovely, but not on the same scale.

 

 
I was having some problems with my seat post and at one point fell behind Finn when I stopped to fix it. I was there fiddling with it for about 20 minutes on the side of the road and I knew I still had to catch up to Finn, so was feeling kind of down when at the same moment that I fixed the saddle a pick up truck pulled over and a smiley guy got out and offered me a lift. Pretty serendipitous, I was chuffed I could now easily get back to Finn (and got to skip out some hills along the way). 
The guy who offered the lift was called Sülumayne. Him and his friend Ibrahim shared the back seat with me while two other guy rode up front. We caught up to Finn easily enough, and then they offered to drive us to the next town over called Beypazari. We had a lot of distance to cover today so of course we agreed, we were happy for the shortcut.
They dropped us off in the centre of Beypazari which, as it turned out, was quite big. We went for a look around and soon found that Beypazari was a really pretty town with small market stalls along cobbled streets and, bizarrely, a load of buildings most of them hotels that looked almost Germanic or Austrian, like and alpine lodge.

 

  
 After poking around Beypazari for a while we decided it was time to make tracks, we still had around 90km to cycle. We rode out along the road which was getting busier the closer we got to the capital. At one point we turned a corner and one of the fruit and veg by the road, a rotund, moustachioed Turk, started waving a slice of melon and us and beckoned us over.

 

 
He was a hilarious guy, we couldn’t communicate at all but he cut big slices off a fresh melon and gave them to us, shouting and chucking all the while. When we were done he would solemnly take the rinds from us and then fling them into a field by the road with a big grin. He was hilarious and this pit stop gave us a much needed boost.
Much needed because not long after was the last big climb before Ankara, but it was a long drawn out one and the sun had gotten quite hot. We took a pit stop in a petrol station halfway up, got some water as we had run out and some food. We then resumed the climb. When we got to the top at last we saw Ankara spread out before us, but there was still a lot of cycling to do before we reached our destination, our host Ahmets place.

 

 
  
Riding into Ankara was a bit like riding into Istanbul, but not quite as busy. It got dark while we were trying to find our way to Ahmets place, the roads were busy and hilly. Ahmet lived a bit outside the centre in a nice neighbourhood and he had a ground floor apartment! What a treat, to not have to lug all our bikes and luggage upstairs at the end of a long (130km) ride.

There was a little rain this morning but thankfully we had but the tarp up yesterday so we were dry getting ready and by the time we were off it had cleared up.
We had a morning climb through the rocky, mountainous scenery but there was still a decent amount of green vegetation around. The climb took us up to 1100 meters and we got a great view of the countryside behind us. It was good we stopped to take it all in, for although it was different to what we had cycled through before, the terrain still felt a bit European or something.

  

   

   After we were halfway down the descent on the other side, I’d say the starting point was after passing through the town of Tašçilar, the scenery changed drastically. There was little vegetation and the mountains now exposed we big sedimentary things with the various layers of rock visible like slices of bread, one on top the other. It felt now,moor the first time, that we were starting to enter the Middle East. 

     
It was a lovely long descent on a wide and quiet road. In fact at one point a young guy driving an empty mini bus pulled up and offered us a lift onwards to the next big town called Nallihan. We didn’t take him up on the offer as the cycling was so nice but did pose for a photo with him, he seemed very pleased with himself to have met us. 
When we did arrive in Nalihan maybe 45 minutes later we stopped to,have a short look around since the place was quite big, biggest town we’d passed through since Izimit. We picked up some Tavuk Donner and then some baklava for later. Baklava is a great cycle touring snack, its like rocket fuel.
On the other side of Nalihan now, and we were in for a big surprise. Once we finished the initial climb out of the city we were greeted with some of the most dramatic and impressive physical geography I’ve seen. At first it was wide expanses of desert with interesting rock formations off in the  distance.

  
  
     

Once we got close to these rocks and hills though the whole landscape came alive.I could try describe but probably can’t get the point across so here are pictures instead:

  
 

 
  

 we arrived at the big lake (or wetland, not entirely sure what it was) we took photos and then figured we might as well stop here and camp at a little spot we had seen from the road that overlooked the vista. We were a couple of kilometres short and would have to make up for it on the ride into Ankara tomorrow, but we had a host lined up there and how often do you get to camp in a place like this:

  

 We spent a bit more time than usual getting ready this morning, partly because the spot by the lake was so nice we didn’t really want to leave but also we had a bit of maintenance to do, plus it was raining and there’s always the hope that you can wait the rain out. We finally got on the road at ten, quite a bit later than normal.
We were back on the D100 and from our campsite to the turn off for the smaller road to Ankara was a total straight shot. There was a light rain, but also a tailwind so it kind of balanced out that way. We made the turn off onto the route D140 and, what a relief, the traffic calmed almost immediately. By by now both of us were feeling pretty hungry so we stopped at the next spot that had food, a lot next to the road with a grocer and a bakery.

 

   
We picked some fruit and bread and sat on benches outside the bakery to eat when an old Turkish woman came over and started fussing over the damp table. She then disappeared inside the bakery and came out with a cloth, wiped down then table and then hurried back inside again. When she came out this time she had a paper spread she put down on the table and then three bowels of cheese and olives, tomatoes and roasted peppers. By now we figured she was the owner of the bakery and we were thanking her very much for the generosity, she gave us all this after we bought one loaf of bread!

 

 
As we were leaving she handed over a fresh loaf of bread to take with us and then insisted we take a photo with her under the sign for her bakery. We said goodbye, thanked her again and got back on the road.
Our route to Ankara was was in the smallest, most direct road we could find. As a result it was the road that ran through some mountains which we of course we’re pleased to find out. We love cycling in the mountains!

 

  
 But today even though we had some nice climbs the clouds were so low and nice view as a reward was not forthcoming. Although the cool, overcast day did make climbing much easier, compared to the heat we’d been riding in previously.

 

 
 By the time we had made it to the top the rain had eased off, though the clouds persisted. Hurtling down the descent we passed through one small town called Ilica where we stopped to pick up some water. A Turkish chap was very pleased to see us outside the shop and beamed at us and shook our hands. After this fun encounter we continued riding downhill until we came to a bridge. Taking a turn off and following the bank we found a camp spot next to a river, swollen by the previous three days of rain.

  

The rain had cleared up when we woke up, though it was still windy and overcast. The small building had done a great job sheltering us from the worst of the storm but everything had still managed to get a bit damp. One of the big drawbacks of camping in a park is that a lot more people tend to come by in the morning. We got a bit lucky this morning actually, we were up and out with the Bivvy gone just before a park keeper came over. It was quite clear we had slept there but since he didn’t find us fast asleep in the tents he didn’t really say anything,must made us move away from the building.
The moving was spent riding out of Istanbul and that took a good two hours, the place is so big and just sprawls on and on forever. The morning began on a great cycle along a bike track beside a quiet enough road on the coast right next to the sea. We rode on that for half and hour with a huge tailwind practically pushing us along, it was fantastic. Once the coast road merged with the bigger route D 100 though, the cycle track disappears and we had to cycle in the, thankfully ample, hard shoulder. 

   

 The problem with the D100 wasn’t that it was big (three lanes) or busy (lots of trucks) but that, since it was going through the city still there were constant on and off ramps that interrupted the hard shoulder and were a bit of a headache to navigate.
Things got better the farther we got from the city though. By the time we were out of the greater Istanbul area the road was down to two lanes and was right next to the sea which we really enjoyed. We pulled off for lunch in the town of Körfez, as we were approaching it had started to rain a bit but almost as soon as we pulled in and got off the bikes and into shelter a massive downpour started, we were quite pleased with our timing.

 

 
Lake Sapanca wasn’t too far from Körfez, and seemed like a nice place to camp so we decided to aim there as a finishing point. We were still on the D100, not ideal but there isn’t really any other option if you want to get out of Istanbul in the direction of Ankara. The rain continued most of the rest of the cycle and cleared up perhaps an hour before we finished. After passing through Izimit, the city at the curve of the bay we climbed up to the lake. We spent a while riding along beside the lake, not quite by the shore but close enough. There were no good spots to camp at for some time. Finally we spotted a small grassy peninsula sticking out into the water.

Pulling off the busy road and down to the peninsula was a nice relief and it turned out to be a great camp spot overlooking the whole lake. What with all the rain we put up the tarp for the first time since Austria, but it was a dry night in the end.