Turkey - Lykia Yolu (Lycian Way)

Turkey
Hike
Nature
Beach
Author

Oliver Eaton

Published

April 14, 2023

Probably the main reason we visited Turkey was to hike a section of the Lykia Yolu (Lycian Way in English, but literally every other language uses “Lykia”…🤷‍♂️). Trav was the main driver on this and did most of the planning, although we remained flexible and freestyled bits here and there. We settled for a five-day hike, freedom camping along the way with no designated or prescribed stops, deciding on just walking until we felt the need to set up camp and rest with an underlying goal of trekking around 15km per day.


The night before the hike Trav discovered an app designed specifically for the Lykia Yolu, which included a trail map and pinpointed historical sites, water refill stations, toilets, good places to camp, guest houses, markets…it included pretty much all information that would be useful those doing the hike, and best of all, information was available offline. It was a gold mine! It cost $10NZD and saved us numerous times when we veered off the official trail or needed to fill water bottles.

Day One

Leaving Fethiye in the morning, we caught a public bus to the south of the city and began the hike in a suburban area. It was hot and the sun beat down upon us. By eleven o’clock, we had slogged it up a large hill entering a rural area mostly by road and stopped to boil up some coffee. This was our first use of the cooker, it worked a charm and the coffee was rewarding acting as an energy boost. We ventured off, spirits were high!

Passing through a little village, we stopped to fill our water bottles from a public tap, dropping one aqua-tab per litre of water, a calculation carried out religiously on the pilgrimage, this being our first time. On the other side of the village, we walked through old city ruins, a paid public attraction which the Lykia Yolu intersects with. Amongst the ruins we ate lunch, which we debated being tuna wraps every day of the hike. Tuna wraps were chosen because a single tuna can work out to be one meal per person and wraps can be used for both breakfast and lunch. The wraps were a tad heavy, but they slotted conveniently into the H2O pouch of a rucksack.

During the last hour-and-a-half of the day, we lugged our heavy bags up a steep gradient. This was the hardest part of the whole hike for me, I was exhausted from the day, our bags were at their heaviest, and we had already clocked up seventeen or so kilometres for the day. By the end I was lurching forward slowly, using the bag’s mass to push me forward up the hill. With aching feet, we finally made it totalling twenty kilometers for the day and set up camp beneath a slap-stick shelter that goat herders probably utilise*. We pushed hard to make it to this spot because it was forecast to rain during the night, so erecting the tent under some shelter was desirable. Additionally, the view and sunset here were incredible. It rained heavily during the night.

*The Lykia app alerted us to the shanti shelter that existed at our camp spot.


Day Two

Everything was wet! Sleeping bags, clothes, backpacks, everything. Whilst packing up in the rain, Trav also discovered a hole in the floor of his tent. This was a shame because it was an extremely expensive purchase in Antalya specifically for this hike, an MSR tent weighing a shockingly light 900 grams. The rip must have happened when he tripped over a stick the day prior. I suppose with a tent so light, the fabric is thin and delicate. We patched it up with electrical tape and hoped it would hold for the remaining four days.

Scoffing down peanut butter wraps for breakfast we set off in the rain. Despite the rain spirits were high and, while passing through the highest point of the day, we laughed at goats taking shelter in half-built homes. We grew sick of being rained on, so, like the goats, took shelter in a half-built home to brew coffee. Virtually the rest of the day was all downhill, the sun was shining by the time we stopped for lunch, so we emptied our bags and dried belongings on the rocks as if they were to become sun-dried tomatoes.

My body was feeling slightly achy from sleeping on a thin foam mat, but surprisingly my knees were holding up and there was no sign of blisters. We stopped around 5pm, after walking thirteen kilometres and set up camp sheltering under a pine tree. Because we stopped earlyish, we scrounged together kindling and wood for a fire, purely lighting one because we had the time and for fun, not for the necessity of cooking food or anything. A few other hikers walked past saying “hello”, none stopping to set up camp. It seems most doing the Lykia Yolu stay in guest houses, which there is no shortage of.


Day Three

A few small creatures could be heard during the night, nothing ominous or frightening though. One thing we hadn’t researched before the hike was what wild animals we might encounter. Tortoises and lizards are common, aside from that the rest have been farm animals such as goats, sheep, chickens & cows. The lack of research may have been a bit ignorant, especially when compared to Australia where many things in the wild will use your bones as toothpicks, after devouring you of course.

I’m so stoked we purchased the app, it saved us many times from veering off track on days one & two and continued to do so on day three. Although, we started getting into a rhythm of searching for official markers and cairns (rock piles set by other hikers) at each intersection and every couple of hundred metres. There is no consistent sign-postage on the Lykia Yolu, I think the trail is maintained by a not-for-profit and I doubt any governmental funding is received.

By this stage, the terrain had become more coastal cliff-face, and we were excited to be walking through a beach on this day. At the beach we stopped for lunch, various others had the same idea. The rock beach, nestled amongst a pine tree forest, was pristine and water turquoise blue, the sun sparkled off the water like diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. The cool water felt refreshing on our exhausted skin, and my pores really soaked up the cold salty liquid. I even had a quick wash using a bar of soap and shampoo, but putting back on the same shirt and shorts didn’t achieve much.

The hike after lunch was extremely steep, ropes had been placed at the steepest points so we could haul ourselves onwards. At the peak, benches had been set up in a picturesque spot that struck a similarity to Baggend, the Hobbit village from Lord of The Rings. Olive trees were scattered everywhere, goats wandered freely and stretched upwards to nibble on tree branches, bees buzzed with no intent to sting strangers, vistas of neighbouring mountain peaks; which no doubt would be laden with snow during winter, surrounded us and the green grass had large white stones sprinkled upon it like a mint vanilla-choc-chip ice-cream. A farmer exited his tiny lime-green cottage and waved at us before taking up his stick to herd some goats. Honestly, it was a fairytale moment. We supplemented this magical moment with some dirty two-minute noodles for a snack and head off.

That evening we met our first tenting companion. We didn’t introduce ourselves, waving in a friendly manner instead, he set up a hundred metres or so away from us. The sunset was absolutely stunning.


Day Four

Two mosques could be heard from our camping spot, their calls echoed off the hills. It was a beautiful way to begin the day, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the call to prayer that bellows from mosques in Muslim countries. It was a really cold night in the tent, moisture covered everything within.

We set off in the morning bumping into our tenting companion in a nearby village. He hailed from Scotland and his name was Hector. We walked together for some time, on this day we bumped into lots of other hikers, this was a more popular section of the trail. We met people from Scotland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Portugal, and Russia. This was the most social we had been for some time. After drinking coffee with Hector and a Dutch couple, Hector set off on his own. I think we were moving too fast a pace for him, or he just wanted to venture solo.

I would describe the terrain after lunch as “treacherous”. We moved horizontally along a cliff face, exposed to the strong ocean wind. Box thorn, holy bush, stinging nettle and other prickly plants grew out from cracks in the rocks. Every step planted would land on a fist-sized rock that would slide out from under one’s foot. It was ankle-breaking territory and I’m amazed my knees held up for the duration of this. These fucking small rocks continued for the rest of the day, all the way up to our campsite. It was definitely my least favourite walking section of the hike.

Wind howled through the camping area! After slurping our two-minute noodles we spent about an hour searching for a flat spot to pitch the tent, sheltered from the wind, had a nice view and ideally rain shelter. The perfect spot didn’t exist, but we found a place that had everything, excluding rain shelter, instead, it had three plastic deck chairs. We ate dinner in a comfortable seated position that evening.


Day Five

At about four in the morning, a sinister grunting sound approached the tent. Trav woke me up, saying “Something is out there, be quiet…”. It circled the tent, sending off grunts that sounded like a Harley Davidson motorbike ticking over. It was scary! My palms were sweating and I held my breath. Thoughts went through my head to grab my pocket knife, exit the tent and stick the beast. Cooking it over a flame in the morning for breakfast. But these were just heroic thoughts, nothing else. My legs were jelly, and I was shit scared. I anticipated rolling into a ball and sheltering under my arms waiting for the beast to burst its way through the tent. It moved ever closer, up until millimetres were between us, the tent and the beast. Finally, it chewed one of the corner pegs; rocks fell somewhere outside, so it mustn’t have been alone. Then all of a sudden it trotted off. We thought maybe it could smell the cooking pot and food that lay between the tent and fly, but thank-fuck it’s gone now. This probably lasted between five to ten minutes, it was hard getting back to sleep. I really wish I had recorded the sound on my camera.*

Obviously, we were tired in the morning. We hiked along the trail reaching a high point with an amazing beach view to stop for coffee. Below us lay Roman ruins, we eventually hiked through them. Later, we reached a freshwater river and washed cooking pots and utensils, we thought about washing ourselves but there was a strong gale of cold wind that inhibited any desire to swim. We had been discussing the possibility of exiting Lykia Yolu a night earlier than planned, because the route we were on passed through a village with a bus stop to Fethiye. This would save us from setting up camp and catching the bus the following day. It would also give us an extra day in Turkey overall. So it was decided that we would attempt to exit that afternoon, if there was no bus we would just camp somewhere and catch one the next day.

The walk to the bus stop was through a large farming village growing tomatoes. Every kilometre or so we would find large piles of red tomatoes farmers had literally thrown away. There must have been something wrong with the batch, but this didn’t stop us from collecting a bag of nice juicy tomatoes. Out of nowhere a young puppy, maybe three months old started following us, at first it was incredibly cute! After four kilometres or so the puppy became an annoyance especially because we couldn’t take it with us, so we tried to scare it away, to no avail. Plus, this made both of us feel extremely guilty. Is this how parents feel? - Scolding something for the betterment of its life? Eventually, an elderly woman took it off our hands, I have a feeling our hitchhiking attempts were failing because of this dog.

Luckily, the local bus passed by, swooping in to pick us up as if it knew where we were. It dropped us off at the intercity bus terminal where we were able to catch the five o’clock bus to Fethiye. We arrived back at the pension around seven in the evening, smelly and exhausted. I was self-conscious about the stench we expelled on the bus. Damn, we were tired. It was a long day, and it felt amazing to kick off my stinky hiking boots, indulge in a hot shower and lie on a real mattress.

*Later we Googled “Likya Yolu wild animals” and discovered it was a KINDOF-goat, here is the sound:


Wrap Up

Trav did an amazing job organising and rallying the motivation to do the hike. It was his planning and expertise that made it such an enjoyable and smooth endeavour to embark upon.

Camping and being self-sufficient for five days was a really rewarding feeling. As the days went by, our packs became lighter and hiking easier. There is something about this that makes multi-day hiking special. Why do we (maybe just me), find solace in the lightening off backpacks on a journey? - Is it because this phenomenon can be modelled by a simple differential equation?

I wore one set of clothes the whole hike, changing only; my socks every day and underwear every two days. We were oblivious to how bad we reeked, but again, this is another thing that gives me solace on multi-day hikes. The only other people we will encounter deep in the bush are others who probably also reek, so who really gives a fuck about one’s odour?

Carrying a camera while hiking feels awkward. Because of this, I didn’t capture many photographs. Most pictures I took were when stationed at lunch or camp spots. Trav captured most of the on-trail photos using his phone.

Kudos Trav! I will never forget these high-spirited, free-flowing five days.