Turkey-our first week

We left our park up at Alexandroupoli in Greece and headed to the Turkish border. We crossed the border at Ipsala. We’d heard that it can take a while to get through. It was a big area.

We found it didn’t actually take that long, in total around 45 minutes including buying some insurance and getting Turkish SIM cards. Then we were through.

Turkey as far as I’m aware is the only country that is in 2 continents! Once through the border you are still in Europe but at some point you have to cross The Sea of Marmara, which connects the Black sea and the Aegean Sea. Once you have crossed then you are in Asia.

You can cross by bridge or ferry, we made the mistake of crossing at the bridge. It’s a very new bridge and although we knew it was a toll bridge there was nothing telling you the price until you reached the other side and it was too late! It’s a vast impressive looking bridge and it actually cost the equivalent of £20 or €23! The alternative is a ferry which I think costs around £7 or €8! We will be doing the ferry when we leave!

If you’re coming get to Türkiye you may want to invest in a toll tag. You can get these at the border and you just need to load some money on it. We completely forgot and ended up buying it at a post office. You can buy them where you e the PTT sign, weekdays only .

We were heading to a place called Ormanya Wildlife Park . It wad been recommended to us by an English couple we met in Albania . It was actually about an hour and a half from Istanbul. We’d decided not to go to Istanbul. We felt it would be too busy and we felt we needed a break from cities.

Ormanya Wildlife park was nowhere near any of the other places we had marked to go which is why we decided to go there first. It was probably about 6 or 7 hours away from where we were!

Our first park up was at a restaurant/bar on the beach. When we got there it really was deserted! It was a single track road down to a beach. there seemed to be quite a few campsites and park ups around but everything was closed and deserted.

I went and had a look at the beach .

Below you can see in the first photo the vast deserted beach, the 2nd photo shows a back drop of snow capped mountains. The last photo is the Cabo bar restaurant completely shut up. It was a big place, the photo only shows a very small part of it .

I hope that it was only shut up because the season hadn’t yet started. It was such a big place and would have been such a shame if it wasn’t going to re-open.

In the morning I didn’t even swim, I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired by this deserted place! We packed up and moved on.

Our next park up was at a place called Mundanya. It was a little town which had a beach and a supermarket.

We did have a wander round the town and went to a post office to sort out our toll tag. We also stopped somewhere for lunch which was a basic kebab shop. I got some vegetables and chips, it was cold! Dee had a kebab which was also cold. We hoped this wasn’t what all Turkish food would be like! I don’t think this town was used to foreign visitors.

We had a good spot on the beach though and we did get some nice things in the supermarket.

I’ve decided not to add any photos from Mundanya as it wasn’t that spectacular really, just a stop off point on the way to Ormanya

The following morning after getting a few last minute things from the supermarket we were back on the road again heading to Ormanya

Ormanya Wild life Park

We arrived late afternoon. They have a separate camping area for caravans and motorhomes . You have to park up and talk to security and go to reception with passports and log book for the van.

Once authorised they will let you into the designates camping area and allocate a spot to you. Inside there are picnic areas and toilets and showers. Everything here is free including EHU ( Electric hook up). The maximum stay allowed is 4 nights.

We decided to wait until the next day before heading into the actual wild life park.

After a good night’s sleep we were ready to go.

Here is the entrance . We were told by a Turkish man that it is funded by the Turkish government and will always be free!

It is vast once you get inside . There is a children’s zoo, lots of wildlife in fields and lakes. They try to keep the animals in their natural habitats or as close as they can. You can see all of the animals are very well looked after. They also have a rehabilitation centre but that was not open to the public.

I definitely went over board with all the different birds!

The following day we got our bikes out as there are 3 different cycling trails at Ormanya.

We also visited the hobbit houses and took a few more photos from around the park.

The following morning we went back inside to have another look at the deer and the children’s zoo.

After lunch we cycled to the nearby town of Kocaeli, Kartepe to get some shopping. We also found a lovely coffee shop it’s called Home and Art Coffee. The owner Feliz is also an artist . Her shop displays her artwork which is for sale as well as coffee.

If you would like to have a look at her art or maybe visit the shop then here is her link on instagram https://instagram.com/filizhomeandart?igshid=MmJiY2I4NDBkZg==

Here we are having a coffee outside.

Ormanya only allow you to stay for a maximum of 4 nights. This was our last night.

Our next destination was Troy, a city of ancient ruins. It was back in the direction we’d come from so we were planning to do at least one stop over on the way.

Our Next post will start when we left Ormanya.

We hope you are enjoying our posts. If you’d like to subscribe you will receive an e mail notification every time a post goes live. Just fill in your e mail below.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram just click the icons below.

• Facebook
• Instagram