Babakkale (Terry)

Where are we?  We are on the Western-most point of the Asian continent!!

 

Too right we are.  We are in the harbour of Babakkale, a remote village in Canakkale Province of Western Turkey.  There’s not a lot here.  However, the town council does go to the trouble of issuing certificates stating that you (insert name) are at the westernmost point of the Asian continent and standing on the shores of the Aegean (Ege in Turkish).  This was extremely exciting for us so we pushed the envelope and walked out along the harbour wall to the western-est point of the breakwater we could find, which is part way around a bend.  (the island of Bozcaada is more west but is not mainland).

On the dock in Babakkale

As little as this town has to offer in terms of luxuries, what it does have in spades is that extremely comforting Turkish hospitality.  We arrived here in rising winds, concerned about the layout and possibilities for secure berthing.  As we were manoeuvring around this very modern but sparse fishing harbour, a chappy with a limp did his best to hurry over to an alongside spot and motion us to come over.  Can’t pass up an opportunity like that so over we went.  He took our lines and we secured.  He wandered away and came back with his receipt book and told us it was TL30 per day.  That’s $15 AUD.  Excellent deal and we were good friends immediately.

We checked out the castle (open 24/7, no locked doors) and the sad small cemetery below the walls for the mariners from here who have lost their lives at sea.  Wandered about town a little, scaring the living daylights out of several residents who exited their houses to the sight of a very large long-haired westerner and a very blonde pretty lady.

We went for dinner up to the first of 3 hotel restaurants on the right of the street up from the harbour and had a satisfying meal.

 

The Octopus

We were convinced by the owner that the octopus was good.  And the Calamari.  And the fish.  And the salad.   So, being tired, hungry and glad of a safe haven, we splurged.  The octopus was indeed good.  Grilled, soft and full of flavour.  The squid was imported but still quite nice.  The fish were the small red mullet you get all over here and came from one of the boats we are tied up near.  The salad was wonderful.  Carol couldn’t resist a small bottle of Shiraz and I wanted my usual 500ml Efes.  Total was a bit higher than usual, $62, but it was a wonderful meal in pleasant surroundings overlooking the harbour and over to the Greek island of Lesbos, some 10 miles away.  It was worth 41 years of hard slog, tension, stress and drama to be able to look out from a place nobody has ever heard of and realise that we could do whatever we wanted to and go wherever fancy took us, albeit at 5 nautical miles per hour.  But it is the westernmost point of an entire continent and we did feel a little special standing out on the breakwater.   I have contacted a Geocaching friend in Istanbul and he’s going to put an Earthcache here (a type of Geocache), one in the Castle and one up in Apollon Smintheon.

The entrance to Babakale Harbour

In the morning, we got on the dolmus to Canakkale.   We were told the bus left at 7:50 but we wandered up at 7:30 to see the brake lights on and the engine running.  Off we went through tiny village after tiny village for the next 2 ½ hours until we got to the Canakkale Otogar.  We could have exited earlier but we had no clue where we were.  Then into town and a wander about this very large city, which is the base for almost all ANZAC tours and also for tours of Troy.  There is even an ANZAC house hotel/pension.

Our main mission was twofold.  1, check out the marina.  Met a very large Turkish marina manager who said sure, come on up, there’s space.  Nice man.   TL1400 for a month’s stay = AUD$700, or under $180 a week.  Walk 50 metres to any number of great seafront restaurants.  A good place to visit the battlefields, Troy and maybe the Black Sea coast. We’re in.

Second was to return yet another dead Kindle.  Carol kills these things with overuse.  I think they are using her as a crash-test dummy.  When she contacted Amazon help, the dude said it was actually just out of warranty but it would seem that as she singlehandedly supports half the authors on Kindle’s list, they decided to replace her out-of-warranty dead one with an upgraded Kindle Touch!!  You can tell who’s their favourite girl. We couldn’t find the UPS office we had to use so we asked in a business if they knew.  The lady thought she knew and then her husband came out and said that they used to be around here but they moved over to the airport.  He rang them to confirm it.  Then he insisted that we get in his car and he drove us over to the new location.  He is a retired Biology teacher who has travelled widely in his lifetime and now works for his two sons – they are engineers and have built a magnificent block of apartments and he sort of runs the office for them while they are being sold off. Once again, Turkish generosity from every stranger you meet.

Day #3 we got on the Dolmus to Assos.  Old, old city.  The ruler of Assos liked to have nice things around so he invited Aristotle to come and stay, and Aristotle did.  The city is very high up, which discourages plunder.  We thought the return bus was due at 6:40 but were not at all sure so we wandered down at 5 just in case.  Turns out it arrived at 7:10.  We sat in the bus stand with an old Turkish dude who was convinced we could speak Turkish, so he kept up a conversation with us.  He sat there all the time we waited but we assume he left when we did.  It’s a fair bet that he wanders down the hill from Assos every day just to sit in the bus stop to watch all the action.  And there’s action a-plenty at this bus stop.  Most cars don’t know where they’re going, because we’re in the back blocks.  So they stop in the middle of the intersection.  Then a guy with a tractor and a trailer comes along and he has to stop.  He blows his horn, so the lost guy in the car takes this as an invitation and gets out to go ask the tractor guy, who must be a local, how to go somewhere.  The old guy in the bus stop finds this endlessly amusing and keeps up quite a banter about it.  He was most taken with an old lady who was not on the normal bus with the other ladies as she tried to flag down car after car without success.  He chuckled away at every attempt.

The Rock at the entrance to Assos

 

Next day, we went to the town of Gulpinar, to the site of Apollon Smintheon, or Apollo, God of Mice (or rats if you prefer).  Apollo can save you from the mice or he can send you a plague of them, depending on the occasion.  Homer's Iliad actually begins here in this obscure place - but more of that  in a later post. This is a wonderful site, full of interesting ruins and fruit and nut trees all over, plus  green grass and running water.  There was a road that has begun to be excavated that ran 30km from Smintheon to Alexandria Troia.  Yes, Troy is just 30km away.

 

Temple of Apollo, Smintheon, Gulpinar

 

 

The Baths, Smintheon

The day after, we went again to Gulpinar to get some supplies (Babakale is a little light on for shopping) and had lunch in the Hektor Restaurant.  The man who owns this has spent something like 40 years working on the historic site – it’s a sort of community effort in Gulpinar – and has old photos of him and his tractor moving huge marbles and friezes around and off to the museum.  He has a superb book on the site, but it’s in Turkish so we could only look at the pictures. 
 

The Hektor Restaurant with Oral Uysal

Exiting the harbour was easy – no wind and no swell and off we went to the beautiful holiday island of Bozcaada, where we arrived safe and sound at around 11am, tied up on the harbour wall and settled in.

 

On the harbor wall, Bozcaada

 

 

Our kind of town