The drive from Morocco to Turkey probably deserves it’s very own post, but within a surprisingly short space of time, we left Africa, crossed Europe, and landed in the van in Turkey.
Turkey is hard to summarise. I have never experienced so much, so deeply, in such a short space of time. I walked in ruins of cities that have been totally untouched since they were abandoned hundreds of years ago. I paddled some of the biggest whitewater of my life on the Manavgat. I climbed in cathedrals of stone, with chimneys and spires and galleries of rock. I tunneled through kilometres of caves. I had life changing baklava.
I really wasn’t expecting this part of the world to have such a big effect on me. Turkey was absolutely in the plan, as it’s not part of the EU or Schengen area, and we knew van life would be relatively easy there. What I wasn’t prepared for was the wealth of experiences I would have. You don’t just get carted around ruins to gawp at them - you can climb through them, touch the door frames, walk where ancient people walked. The city of Terassmos was abandoned over three hundred years ago, and it now lies totally pristine at the top of a mountain. It has an amphitheatre that sits at the top of the city on a small spire, surrounded by a bowl of mountains. It’s one of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen in my life.
I also started to learn rock climbing. I’ve done quite a lot of bouldering before, alongside training. I’ve never properly rock climbed, and I absolutely have never gone first to clip before. It’s wild, and unbelievable pressure (we are absolutely talking about 5a-c here) and I love it. It’s a mind game in a very similar way to kayaking, but gentler and slower. And it also robs your fingerprints.
The paddling in Turkey was a big step for me. I’ve never been in a “box canyon”, in the sense that to escape the river requires either being very committed to going down it, or having over a hundred metres of rope stashed somewhere about your person. I don’t think there are many things that are TRUE must-runs, but I think that Manavgat is pretty close. Being in this kind of environment feels extremely high pressure compared to what I’ve paddled before, because the runs are so committing. It felt like we refined the way we paddled together, and I learnt an unbelievable amount about myself. Since paddling the steep canyons of Alara and Manavgat, rivers that aren't walled in by hundred metre cliffs have felt relaxed in a way I'd never would have thought possible.
It’s a bit weird because the better I get at whitewater kayaking, the more i think a lot of slalom “physics” really do apply. They’ve always been an advantage, but I’ve actively tried to learn from scratch. I know there are some habits that don’t serve me well in a creek boat, but as those start (START) to fall away, the good things I’m aiming for are evolving, and a lot of them look remarkably similar to things I had to work on in slalom. Things like pushing the boat with my knees rather than pulling it up towards me was a principle I never quite got my head around in racing, but looks like it's going to feature in the next chapter of my whitewater.
Turkey is hard to summarise. I have never experienced so much, so deeply, in such a short space of time. I walked in ruins of cities that have been totally untouched since they were abandoned hundreds of years ago. I paddled some of the biggest whitewater of my life on the Manavgat. I climbed in cathedrals of stone, with chimneys and spires and galleries of rock. I tunneled through kilometres of caves. I had life changing baklava.
I really wasn’t expecting this part of the world to have such a big effect on me. Turkey was absolutely in the plan, as it’s not part of the EU or Schengen area, and we knew van life would be relatively easy there. What I wasn’t prepared for was the wealth of experiences I would have. You don’t just get carted around ruins to gawp at them - you can climb through them, touch the door frames, walk where ancient people walked. The city of Terassmos was abandoned over three hundred years ago, and it now lies totally pristine at the top of a mountain. It has an amphitheatre that sits at the top of the city on a small spire, surrounded by a bowl of mountains. It’s one of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen in my life.
I also started to learn rock climbing. I’ve done quite a lot of bouldering before, alongside training. I’ve never properly rock climbed, and I absolutely have never gone first to clip before. It’s wild, and unbelievable pressure (we are absolutely talking about 5a-c here) and I love it. It’s a mind game in a very similar way to kayaking, but gentler and slower. And it also robs your fingerprints.
The paddling in Turkey was a big step for me. I’ve never been in a “box canyon”, in the sense that to escape the river requires either being very committed to going down it, or having over a hundred metres of rope stashed somewhere about your person. I don’t think there are many things that are TRUE must-runs, but I think that Manavgat is pretty close. Being in this kind of environment feels extremely high pressure compared to what I’ve paddled before, because the runs are so committing. It felt like we refined the way we paddled together, and I learnt an unbelievable amount about myself. Since paddling the steep canyons of Alara and Manavgat, rivers that aren't walled in by hundred metre cliffs have felt relaxed in a way I'd never would have thought possible.
It’s a bit weird because the better I get at whitewater kayaking, the more i think a lot of slalom “physics” really do apply. They’ve always been an advantage, but I’ve actively tried to learn from scratch. I know there are some habits that don’t serve me well in a creek boat, but as those start (START) to fall away, the good things I’m aiming for are evolving, and a lot of them look remarkably similar to things I had to work on in slalom. Things like pushing the boat with my knees rather than pulling it up towards me was a principle I never quite got my head around in racing, but looks like it's going to feature in the next chapter of my whitewater.
