Another lovely sleep and another beautiful morning. While in the tent we had feared for the worst as the waves had been crashing against the shore all night. Our fears were proved to be unfounded and we were soon back on the road in glorious sunshine.
With the road flat and a gentle breeze behind us, we seemed to eat up the miles. Our first break came along in double quick time and with it the milestone of 3000 miles!
Despite the fact that shortly afterwards Debs bike suffered yet another puncture, she is now comfortably winning the puncture count, we soon covered the 50km to Mersin. After grabbing some supplies we stopped in a lovely spot by the sea for lunch.
The town of Mersin seems very attractive, with one of the prettiest promenades we have seen. They have rather gone overboard on the slightly tacky statues though. Giant plastic squirrels, Elephants and ancient ruin reconstructions, jostle with more tasteful fountains. If there hadn't been so much traffic through the town, it would have been a very nice bike ride. Most of the traffic appears to be large lorries moving to and from the busy docks. The first part was ok, but as we neared the port the traffic got crazy. Not on an Izmir level but certainly the worst we have had for a while.
Having safely cleared two motorway junctions and with the blessing of a wide hard shoulder to ride in we made it to Tarsus unscathed. Asking at the camp-site yesterday, I was told that there were several pensions and hotels in Tarsus. Having done over 80km we were looking forward to finding somewhere to stay. In typical fashion we couldn't find any of them, mainly because Tarsus is a lot bigger than I thought it was. We did get directions to one hotel, but when we got there it looked so expensive that we didn't bother going to ask. Our 50TL (£20) maximum budget was almost definitely too low.
Giving up on the town, the only thing to do was carry on and try and find a free-camp spot amongst the urban sprawl. While not that late, we are always aware that it still gets dark around 5:30pm, so we like to stop before about 4pm.
With the day wearing on we stopped to buy some water from a roadside market. As we were about to leave I asked the owner Mehmet if there was anywhere to camp nearby. It turned out that the whole complex behind the market belonged to him/his family and he offered to let us camp in his orchard. The orchard is attached to a bar and disco which may or may not be open, it looks deserted, but from what we can understand it is indeed open.
Although speaking no English and us speaking no Turkish, Mehmet has been a terrific host. While setting up camp, we were introduced to his very sweet son Martin and slowly the rest of the family came round to inspect our tent.
Using a lot of sign language, we got invited to dinner with the family and had a lovely meal. The family seems to be huge, every time we thought we had met everyone, someone else seemed to turn up. It was an enjoyable but slightly surreal experience, especially as while taking some photos of the family Debs ended up on the shoulders of Mehmet's wife.
All the while Mehmet's son Martin thought it was hilarious. Things got a little stranger when the police turned up to speak to one of the family, they didn't leave with anyone so we assume it ended ok.
Once again we are quite glad that we couldn't find a hotel, plus the extra distance that we did today, means that we will comfortably clear the city of Adana tomorrow.
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