The Ham Nomads

1 Jun 2015. <TR> Kaş; Finike; Kumluca —

Today we leave Kaş and drive along the coast, heading towards Antalya.

A leisurely start, and we went down into Kaş to walk around the shops, visit the Post Office to post off the delinquent postcards, and then to our friends at the Lola Restaurant & Cafe for a morning caffeine hit. One thing we must mention about Kaş — because of the large tourist population, they have the English newspapers — it's a real luxury to be able to sit back and read today's Times!

This fellow was putting a sign up over his diving equipment shop.
Warren helped, by pointing out a spelling error before it was too late

Warren went back down the hill to get a couple of items we'd forgotten

Leaving Kaş there's a long steep climb, which gives you some rather good viewing points over the town — but Gertie wasn't happy!

Along the way, we noticed that a lot of the crops were being grown under cover, creating huge 'polytunnel cities'.

We were driving along the seaside virtually the whole way. Coming into Demre we noticed some magnificent marshland below us.

The road for a large part is cut into the cliff-sides along the Mediterranean, making for some spectacular scenery along the way. We stopped off between Demre and Finike at a viewing point under a shady tree for lunch.

The next stretch of road was undergoing major — and we mean major — roadworks, as parts of the road had slipped into the sea. They were constructing a huge concrete barrier on the seaward side and back-filling it to recreate the missing road — and they were extending this concrete barrier all along the highway as a preventive measure. Must say that we have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the roads throughout Turkey.

As we drove through Finike, we saw a long beach, with what looked like good spots for free camping right on the beachfront, between areas dedicated to restaurants and playgrounds — and even a beach club! But it was too soon to stop.

Our first impression of Kumluca was another of these cities of polytunnels and glasshouses — turns out that Kumluca is a major area for growing tomatoes and watermelons — we've seen a lot of men selling watermelons from the back of a truck, equipped with proper fruiterers' scales to judge the weight!

We continued onwards to a shady spot among the pines in the hills not far past Kumluca — which proved a blessing, as while she was reading a book about the area, Susie found that there was a most interesting site at Demre, so we decided to backtrack the 80km tomorrow to visit it.

Distance driven — today, 74 miles ( 119 km ); to date, 21,238 miles ( 34,180 km )