Wednesday 16th October - South side psychling

I haven't posted for a while and that's for a few reasons. Mainly because I sent my iPad mini back with Lauren when she came to visit thinking that I wouldn't need it and I could write everything on my iPhone. But it's not quite the same and my thumbs are too fat. Like Homer Simpson I need a phone with extra large buttons. I also just realised I name-checked two apple devices in the same sentence.

Anyway, despite the length of time since my last post, I have been wanting to update you all. Ive decided to post them in a series - a trilogy, a quadrilogy or an epic opus depending on my creative juices. It will a bit of a highlights package of the best and least "thrilling" bits. Role VT...

So here it is: ISTANBUL - ANKARA. 500km. By me.

One day out of Istanbul and I'd only made 45km. The going was slow, I didn't really have the motivation and my bike felt heavy. The next morning, after waking up to find myself very much alone in a waste land, I took the decision to take my bike down to the coast and see if I could find a boat to take me over the Sea of Marmara. It's only about 50km across at this point so would be a short trip and in doing so ill be away from Istanbul and I could relax again. There's only so much A road a man on his own can take. 

So I arrived port side early in the morning with the sun already pricklingly hot. I soon found a sign to a ferry port. And the price of the fare? 60p. My bag of nuts from the kiosk cost more.

I always enjoy the ferry bits. It makes a change from pedalling and pedalling all day. This one was pretty basic with a cabin to sit in to drink tea and I was over the water to the other side in about 45 minutes. Enough time to charge my phone and fill my pockets with complementary sweets. 

The crossing was to a place called Topcular and on the other side, I think I was expecting a lovely empty coastal road. Annoyingly it seemed no different to the road i was on before. The same crumbling hard shoulder. The same dusty clouds kicked up by the lorries and I did ask myself whether it was worth the effort and sea crossing but I didn't have much time to dwell, just crack on as ever. Best not to think to hard in these situations. 

That day was a real low one. I was exhausted from seemingly little effort. I was just having a bad day and really crawling along. The bike just feels heavy and you want to stop all the time. As soon as you hit the slightest stretch which isn't pan flat or downhill you just want to throw your bike down and wait for a lift. These happen some days. Either you're not properly rested, you didn't eat enough the night before or you're body is just telling you it's had enough. I think I was just tired and also my brain wanted to be somewhere else. I frankly could not be arsed. The faceless grey towns didn't help to motivate me. The road was like military alley. Every 10 miles there was an army base with runtish soldiers wearing helmets falling over their eyes. Each one I passed I gave a little nod to get a reaction. They looked as painfully bored as I was but subtly I got a tip of the head back. I think we shared eachother's pain that day. 

Anyway, I had little idea of my best route to Ankara still so I just carried on east a bit hoping it would become apparent. At least the weather was nice. The day reached a new low later in the afternoon as I was caught short and forced to take care of business in some trees behind a football stadium. Sorry if this is too much but I feel you should know really what life is like living on the road. Glamorous it is not. 

So that night id made it away from Istanbul, I'd crossed a body of water, and was now very much in land. Probably only a modest 100km but it felt like more. I found a field near a town called Izmit to camp. It was dads birthday so went back to a Carrefour I passed earlier and sat and called him on Skype. Was nice to speak to him and with the rain pouring down outside I felt a long long way from home. As I sheltered inside my tent that night, the rain lashed down and the tent creaked in the wind. And little did I know where this downpour would lead me to over the coming days.