There's still a heap of tar sealing the underneath. The rest took about 5 litres of diesel for each truck.
Lake Egirdir provided an opportunity to celebrate birthdays.
Ali and Margaret within a couple of days.
The wine was Greek, provided by Vasso.
The locals seem to use nets.
Set and left overnight.
But it didn't seem to matter.
The wind had disappeared for a bit and the lake settled down.
We don't know what it was but it tasted good.
Access here made us think the lake was full.
Ali and I set off about dawn to Ankara.
In search of Kazakhstan and China visas.
It became easier once we'd crossed the mountains and followed the plain.
There were frequent breaks.
We passed through Polatli.
Valet parking and lots of security guards.
And a Kipa (which is Tesco) supermarket.
We also discovered that mobile phones have to be registered with the government for them to work with Turkish sim cards. Grrrrrr.
Lodged our Kazakhstan applications on Wednesday but the Chinese consulate was closed.
We parked at the oddly named Centilman Piknik to the east of the city.
A new interpretation of the rules apparently.
The clerks initially wanted the original letter of invitation rather than the printed emailed copy and inspected it very closely.
Other applicants were put through similar hoops. The subtle difference between effectively providing visas and zealous gate keeping.
The early sign of a problem was that while the gate to the consulate was opened at 09:30 the window to the clerks remained closed. It looked suspiciously like someone late for work with a hangover!
Hopefully the previously unknown residence rule for China visas is unique to Ankara.
We opted to carry on to Cappadocia then back to Ankara to pick up the Kazakhstan Visas.
It seems prudent to avoid being separated from our UK and NZ passports.
We need time to consider how to obtain those very important China visas. I prefer a more predictable process than the bureaucratic "trial and error" we are now stuck in, but such is life.
Not helped by lack of internet.
275 km through rolling hills of wheat.
The stones had disappeared from the road leaving soft tar.
The fix was simply to put more stones on top.
