Winter Walking #2 Hacıoğlan Loop

(Another bit for the newsletter, see the entry below)

Many people think of Turkey as a dry country but the opposite is true, there are many parts which are lush and behind the Mediterranean coast, just an hour inland, you are in the yayla, highland plateaux, in the shadow of the Akdağ Mountains, part of the Taurus Range, with peaks of 3000m.

Autumn is the driest part of the year. In the winter it will snow and the peaks remain snow-capped until June but for now it hasn't rained much since May. But still there are abundant crops and fruit orchards in the valleys and gorges that are surrounded by huge forests of pine and cedar between the mountains and the coast.

In December we undertook another walk in one of these valleys, just a little off the main Lycian Way Route.

This walk took us on a loop overlooking the village the Hacıoğlan and down into the valley to near the outlying farms. From the upper road you can see, on the far side of the valley, a yellow speck that looks like a crashed plane which appeared then in the spring. This being the first chance anyone had had to investigate some of us forded the river after lunch  and went across to have a closer look. it is indeed an airplane, a single pilot crop duster. A local shepherdess informed us that the pilot had walked away unscathed.

The dogs and us had a fun time of it walking about 3 1/2 hours to return via a different route to the vehicles.