The weather forecast said sun, sun, sun when we checked it yesterday but over the past few days we’ve had just the opposite — a run of rain. One day of rain is okay, two is manageable but after three days of wet weather you start to feel a little down. This morning’s drops turned our field campsite into a mud hole and our heavy bikes sunk into the muck, the wheels completely stopped from turning by the thick clay that coated the tyres and brakes.
We had to carry our bikes out of the field and then take shelter in an abandoned building, where we scraped the mud out with our hands so the wheels would turn again. Late in the morning we finally got underway, with a fine drizzle still falling on our heads. The clouds cleared a little as we came over a mountain pass, giving us a fine view onto a lake below with its turquoise blue waters. Even on a grey day the reflection from the lake was beautiful but before we could snap a picture the rain returned so by the time we got to the town of Yeşilova we’d had enough.
A hearty lunch of pide – the Turkish version of a pizza – gave us a chance to think and we decided stopping early for the day would do the trick to get us back on track. Happily this little town is just big enough for a hotel that is reasonably clean and doesn’t break the bank so we snapped up a room, cleared the laundry out of our panniers and sat back, hoping for the weather to improve tomorrow.