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Very testing. Wind in my face. Lots of hills. Significant hills which were long, steep and on winding roads.

After the first 12 minutes of so getting out of Kumbag, spent the entire morning stood on the pedals.

This really didn’t go away, or at least the wind didn’t. It was joined by a hailstorm later on!

The hills did improve in that the bends went away. When you’ve got bends like that, it’s impossible to sit down and just cycle normally.

In terms of the geography, flora and fauna, things were much more interesting.

Breakfast

Was late at the hotel, service started at 9.

It was a nice breakfast.

Kumbag is the first sea level area for quite a distance, which I guess is why it’s got the port.

The hotel, Novo Port Hotel, tried to fleece me a little on the dinner. When I arrived at 20.00, the idea of eating in and just being able to relax made me ask, ‘how much is dinner?’. To which she said €8, fish and chips. I thought, this is a good deal, but I didn’t really want the chips so much, so she said salad. So I said, ‘ok’.

I went off and had a shower. When I came back down, the meal was waiting. It seemed really basic. The salad had no dressing but the fish was fresh. It was good fish. No doubt!

I had another beer went to buy some cheap pastry type sweets from the kiosk that was attached to the hotel. When I’d got all the gear I wanted from the shop, the hotelman offered to settle both bills at once.

This is when the problems started. He wrote it all down. The fish was 400 £10. The salad was 150 £4. I said, *this is bollocks* ‘your wife told me she would do the meal for €8, she even wrote it down’. He was like Google translating. In the end it got left until the morning when his wife, the person that struck the deal arrived back.

Had my breakfast all fine and dandy, when it came to check out and settle my bill, she claimed that the €8 was what someone down the road would do it for. This may or may not be true, but I think it unlikely because when she said fish and chips €8, I wasn’t really biting. Then she said salad and I agreed, doesn’t really add up does it?

Besides that, they were pretty pleasant and it really wasn’t worth making much of it. So I didn’t.

I paid them about 2/3 of what they wanted. Once that was done, I was on the bike and off!

Here’s some pictures from the day:

The first part was on back roads, like I said on the last blog. When I got to a town called Sarkoy, there was the alternative of getting back on the main roads or staying in the minor roads.

With the hills being so drastic, and the roads so windy, I was really in no hurry to make the afternoon as painful as the morning.

Back in black (tarmac)

This was on D roads initially, would be the equivalent of our A roads in the UK.

Later on, that progressed toward dual carriageway.

Here’s a Porsche rally I saw on the D road.

Gelibolu

Or Gallipoli as we Brits call it. Is where I am tonight. In my boutique hotel. I’ve made a short video about it. Also another one of some Turkish wildlife that ventured into my path.

That’s all folks!!..!