Day 14 – Friday 22 May

The water was lovely and blue this morning, and it would have been nice to have a day to relax and go for a swim. Needs must so after a relaxed breakfast we set off up the road on foot to hopefully find our car intact.

It was there thankfully, with another layer of dust but unharmed. There were some workmen and locals around the area and as we were loading our day bags into the car Vern excitedly said, “dear – your camera” a couple of other parked cars over was a big hairy pig! This had also created a bit of excitement amongst the locals and a non English speaking gentlemen lead me to the edge of the hill bit and indicated they came for the mulberries that would drop, as well as other food. Then he indicated ‘baby’ – and led me a bit further and low and behold there were about 4 other adults and 11 piglets!

I didn’t want to get too close as there were babies involved and I don’t think I could outrun a sow! They were such chill pigs for wild animals and it is delightful to see how the Turkish live in harmony with animals all around them. I looked up why they had so many cats and dogs roaming and it dates back to Ottoman times, long story short they are considered part of the community and are fed and desexed if possible. There is law to not harm them.

Again, this was one of those impromptu travel moments that make the journey so memorable. We collected our main bags front the hotel on the way out of town and commenced the long 5 hour drive to Çanakkale.

The roads were very good again, with lots of tollway highway of 33 to 87kms at a stretch. Speed maximum of 130 in areas. The traffic was also pretty light thankfully. We stopped for a roadside stall selling strawberries and got a large 1kg punnet for $10 nzd. They are the nicest strawberries we have tasted since my dad grew them about 40 years ago. They were so fragrant you could smell that quintessential aroma before even biting into the juicy red fruit.

The second stop was 2/3 way at a roadside pull off restaurant for lunch. It was again a very good and fairly priced meal. This is of course where locals might eat, as well as passing tourists. It was better than the average tourist trap restaurant at noticeable cheaper prices. We are still enjoying our drinks of Ayran and turnip juice to accompany our meals. This time we had kofta with yoghurt and a chicken in thyme sauce. Both very nice and huge serves for a very reasonable price. Basically the roadside meals are half the tourist restaurant price for same thing, if not bigger serves.

Our hotel at Canakkale is the Double tree Hilton and fairly new. There is easy access and free parking outside which is a nice bonus and the rooms very modern and comfortable. The restaurant was not great – we popped down for a simple dinner of fish and a soup and it was so minimal. I did complain the next morning, however I should have at the time but we were tired and needed to carefully map our next day to get to Istanbul airport by 2pm, so did not have time to go out and explore for something better either.