Turkey Day 6 – Alanya Castle, Geocaches and Closing Ceremony

With the racing over it was now time to relax. These international triathlon events are brilliant and take me to places I might not otherwise have gone, but in the run up to the race there isn’t much time for anything other than race preparation, race panicking and race nerves, so it’s nice to have a day or two afterwards to bask in the sunshine and the glory.

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Basking… Whilst attempting self portrait photography and trying to look relaxed!

That said I also want to get home to see everyone and share the stories of the race with them. If only they could be here with me. Anna and Morgan aren’t though, so today I had planned to climb to the top of the hill overlooking Alanya and visit the historic castle that dominates the top of the hill. In fact, the whole of the promontory on which it stands is fortified with walls of the castle that look impressive from a distance so had to be visited.

We set off at 9:15am so as to avoid the worst of the heat, but it was already up close to 30°C. Frank and I headed off at the front with the usual Turkish taxi drivers trying to convince us that we needed a taxi to the top. In the end we told them we were going to run it and started haring off up the hill… So much for not getting too hot. Andrea Karen, Alison, Hazel, John and Mary followed up behind us.

Frank and I took short cuts up alongside the old castle walls, taking a fairly direct route to the top while the others followed the less steep road that snakes it’s way around the hill. The views out across Alanya on the way up were spectacular.

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Alanya harbour

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Once at the top Frank anD I had an ice cream and then I had the thought of looking to see if there was a geocache nearby. I explained to Frank what geocaching was and sure enough there was one just 66m from us.

We headed off to find it as I read the description and then discovered that it was actually the starting point of a multi-cache. The track lead along a narrow ledge on top of one of the ancient castle walls that itself sat atop a huge sheer cliff with some vertiginous drops to the blue sea below. This looked like an adventure that would kill some time whilst waiting for the others so we set off in search of the cache.

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The scramble along the walls was amazing with views of the northern beach of Alanya and the cliffs that led to it. There were also various bits of castle fortification on the cliffs and huge pirate party ships we plying their trade on the seas far below.

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We scrambled along the top of the wall as it snaked its way along the sun baked cliff-top and soon found ourselves at the cache location where we easily found the container and signed the logbook. Frank’s first ever geocache and my first Turkish one. We then retraced our steps back to the castle entrance pleased with the little adventure we had been on.

Castle Confusion

As we arrived back at the castle entrance I received text messages from both Andrea and Alison asking us where we were. I replied saying that we we at the castle entrance and at the same time had another message saying that they were at the castle entrance too. We looked around but clearly they weren’t here. I asked via text if they had paid and gone in and had a reply saying they were paying at the kiosk. We found this quite funny as we were stood right at the kiosk ourselves and they weren’t here.

We decided that maybe there was a delay with the text messages and they had paid a few minutes ago so we quickly paid, entered the castle and set off in search of them. We were giggling as we went as the whole thing seemed funny to us and we knew they would be getting annoyed that we had gone off ahead and now they couldn’t find us.

We couldn’t find them either though so we came back out and then realised that there were two castles! One at the top where we were and one further down the hill where they must be. They hadn’t made it to the top yet.

We went off in search of them having fun as we did so and chatting to the locals. We eventually found them all looking very hot and bothered and not at all amused sat in the shade by the side of a track wondering where to go. Frank and I burst out of the undergrowth having ran down the hill laughing at something only to find the ragged little bunch of them sat on a wall by an old mosque.

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We started telling them all about our adventures, but they weren’t too amused. This just made it even funnier to us as we now felt naughty teenagers! I told them that this was great as I hadn’t felt like a teenager for years. I think the fact that they were hot and bothered didn’t help and the fact that the more annoyed they were the funnier we found it didn’t help too. No one was too put out by it all though and we were soon on our way back to the top castle again for a drink in a cafe surrounded by the racket being made by what I think are cicadas.

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After the drink we headed back down. Frank and I set off on our own and found a second geocache this time overlooking the southern side of Alanya. I then set off alone back to the town where I did a little bit of souvenir shopping and left the others to it.

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Closing ceremony

At dinner (where I once again ate far too much over the course of about 6 courses) I asked if Andrea and Frank were going to the closing ceremony. They said they weren’t and neither were the others as they were meeting them at 8:30 to go for a drink. I managed to persuade them otherwise and to join me at the closing ceremony so on the way there we stopped off at the other hotels and told them of the change of plans… We didn’t have to stay at the closing ceremony if we didn’t want to, but I thought it was worth checking it out.

I’m glad we did as it was brilliant. A huge outdoor area in the grounds of a restaurant with a red carpet entrance, white and gold decorated tables and chairs and more free food than you can imagine. What’s more, the beer and wine was free too! There was a stage with a big screen, a band and several singers and a really nice party atmosphere. We stayed all night, eating, drinking and making merry before walking back along the beach as an amazing orange moon set into the sea.

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Everyone agreed that they were glad I had persuaded them to come and that it was a brilliant night to end the week. There were of course presentations and little speeches and it was good to see triathletes from all of Europe partying together and enjoying themselves. It’s so nice to be able to do such things outdoors as well. Having a predictable climate certainly helps with such things.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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