111km, 4h41, 658hm
I got a Turkcell phone card in Kastamonu and I called my bank in Prague to give me the code of my credit card. Very essential now that I am out of the EU. After those basic arrangements, we hit the road. Today was our 5th Sunday of the trip. In other words, five full weeks will be completed after today's ride. The town Boyabat seemed like a good destination for today, with 110 km.
The exit out of the city Kastamonu. My GPS indicated all the directions we needed
Day 35, five full weeks, almost 4000 km. These are the numbers of my biggest cycling trip ever
Actually the itinerary was extremely simple, just follow the D30 all the way east.
We started at 800 meters and we descended very slowly. The gradient was -1 or a bit less stretched out over tens of kilometers. Actually those are the best descents because you enjoy them the longest and you can built up momentum.
Turkish mosque
Samsun was the name we were looking at. Less than 300 km to that big city that would bring us back to the Black Sea coast.
The very long descent out of the mountain range we came from
Very interesting phenomenon: we saw a lot of bullets on the road. Later we learned that after 18.30 there are gangs here that have shoot outs and people get killed. So these days we should not camp outside. That was the advice we got from the locals. We would not be ignorant...
After 40 km we saw this little restaurant and we decided to stop here for lunch. We drank a lot and we relaxed. We left again around 13.00. Soon we regretted that we sat here for so long...
After lunch we had a very fierce headwind. Speeds were low and we stopped a few times for catching our breath. A very strong change of winds over lunch!
And the skies looked anything but promising. It stayed dry though
We didn't notice a lot of the downhill part, the winds were too strong
District of Siniri
The very long D30 which will take us to the Black Sea...
Another very special Sunday on the road. After 15:00 the winds turned again and we had normal speeds again.
Slowly we were approaching Boyabat
Something was brewing in the skies
40 km to Boyabat and 245 to Samsun. That would mean two and a half days for us. Progress was going so well during these first five weeks. What a blessing!
The weather was rapidly shifting the last few days, from sunshine, to rain, to this, to drought.
Boyabat, the town of nearly 30.000 people. We made it in one day without difficulties
This wraps up five weeks on the road
The view of the city Boyabat
We asked some people in the city for a place to stay and they gladly pointed us towards a hotel in the city center. For Roger it was almost the end of his trip and he wanted the luxury of staying in a nice bed of possible. I was not gonna argue with him over it hehehe.
Resepsyon, another French word in the Turkish language
After five weeks, we cycled nearly 3900 km. Tomorrow we would pass the 4000 km mark. 111 km today. We descended more than we climbed.
Our itinerary from Kastamonu to Boyabat on this lovely August 6th.
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