Bye Bye Turkei - Where are the big birds?

Today we crossed the Turkey - Greece border at Kipi and it's just as hot on the other side. The last few days have been good. From Silivri we cycled the main road towards Ipsala and sampled some rather croweded and noisy campsites.

But who cares as life revolves around food and after the last 6weeks we thoroughly enjoy long, tasty breakfasts - yammm..

Yep - we both now have matching sunhats, sunglasses and Birkenstocks! Marital behaviour has definitely fully set in - doh!

Couple of days ago we met these chaps, Henry and Jamie who are on a 18months adventure from London to Sydney - they are riding to raise money - check out their website and donate here. Thanks for the Greek map guys!

So we cycled on in hilly Turkey on small and main roads and we were granted an entire! day with tail wind - nice!

Then we ended up on the Autobahn - Motorway in Greece. Photo below: We just had climbed the fence to the right as our little road just stopped so we had to continue on the motorway - that was a first (and hopefully a last).

Now we are off to Dadia Forest Reserve to check out some Big Birds - apparently 36 of the 38 European Birds of Prey come through this migratory path - see what we can see....

Off to the beach!

See also two NEW posts below (Gobi & Beijing)...

The flight and check in at Beijing airport was remarkably smooth.
At the packaging desk the bikes got cardboard protection.

And it was no problem to get them on the plane. The flight was 10hours and we were treated very well. Two excellent meals and personal screens wıth plenty of movies, Audio books,TV etc to choose from - Turkish Airlines all the way!

We landed at 4.30am, put the bikes back together, packed up and waited for daylight and then set off at about 7am. Soon we reached the coast.

It is hot, the roads are busy, very busy. We really still feel the proximity of Istanbul - and are glad we did not cycle into the city which sounds mad with 20million residents spread over only half the size of London - aaahh!
Navigation was tricky, especially as we tried every opportunity to avoid the dual carriage way. We ended in dead ends a few times, one of them a massive industrial port - not sure how we managed that, must have been the lack of sleep!

But with the help of some extraordinarily friendly people who just approached us and helped, when we looked a bit lost we made it. In the evenıng we rolled ınto Silivri campsite (SouthEast of Istanbul) after 82km rather then the estımated 55km by google maps - oops. Since then it has been bliss - beach, swimming and wining and dining with Paul and Jane from Essex (UK) who are on a 7months camper van tour through Europe - Lovely!

We are slowly catching up on sleep and are getting used to the heat. Tomorrow we are setting off
towards the Greek border.

We are looking forward to pass through Macedonia and will try to cycle mostly in the mornings to avoid the big afternoon heat.

Across the desert, through the forbidden city and straight to the beach!

We landed in Ataturk Airport yesterday and rather then cycliıng into Istanbul we headed straight for the coast and to the beach. Well, "straight" is not quite right - navigation has been challenging with roads definitely not set up for cyclist - well nor for motorists either - the road signs are very sporadic - but we got here: Silivri campsite at the beach - lovely. It's rather hot here and we have been in the sea lots already and are gorging on fruit. Tonight we are having dinner with a campervan couple from Essex (the only other foreign tourists on our campsite).

Beijing was fantatstic and we had brilliant four days includıng the forbidden city, the great wall and a kungfu show. Unfortunately the blog was censored in China so more on our time there later.

Pics and further update to follow - over and out.