We breakfasted on instant soup by the river – the village wing of Fethiye Times had committed the ultimate sin of forgetting to pack tea bags and coffee – packed up our camp and set off to return by way of the opposite river bank route to the one we walked the previous day.

We plodded past Yeşil Vadi and carried on.  Then the dirt track started to go up, it got steeper and, as we rounded a sharp bend we saw it continued to rise almost to the top of the mountain before disappearing around yet another bend.  A conference ensued.  The really keen walker (our actual editor) declared he was for carrying on.  The rest of us wanted to go back to Yeşil Vadi, drink some tea and then forge an alternative route along the actual river bank down in the valley.  The solution had to be a parting of the ways.  The editor strode off upwards, while we wimps went happily downhill towards the promise of hot tea.

Two cups later we crossed the river on the wobbly bridge and followed a tiny dirt path along the bank – well below the level of the road we had walked up on.  Within minutes the first problem appeared.  Our path came to a dead end in a rock face and the only way to continue was to balance on the heavy metal water pipe that is Yaniklar village’s drinking water supply, and with hands on rock face, inch our way along.  We made it and consoled ourselves with thoughts of the main man plodding on a wide track, while we had all the excitement. 

{mosimage}Further along our path took us by cultivated fields and we noticed a dead jay displayed on a fence in the tradition of British ‘gamekeeper’s larders’.  Then we reached the first fish farm on the river and boldly marched through until we came to the sluice gates at the far side with chain link fence apparently blocking our way.  Not to be outdone we managed to clamber across the gates and lift the fence to crawl under.  And effectively that was the end of the excitement.  Soon after we found a bridge to cross the river, then we were back on the wide dirt track that leads down to the village.  Here the banks on both sides of the road were liberally dotted with cyclamen and, rounding a bend with only 500m to go to our next tea break at Pastoral Vadi, who should be waiting but the main man, who has already spent an hour and a half drinking tea and decided he’d walk out to meet us. 

The female half of the village wing of Fethiye Times turned out to have major blisters so Pastoral Vadi kindly had one of their staff drive us home – after copious glasses of tea and a light lunch.  Despite the blisters we are all determined to go ahead with the (for us) BIG WALK which will start on 10th October when we catch the bus to Antalya en route for our starting point in Selge – watch this space.