Pamukkale

So the road did lead over the mountain and was definately worth the drive. It goes from Guzelcamli and we came out Atburgazi. There were a lot of tracks heading of in diffrent places so you can probably come out in many places. We turned of the original one that had markers on as im pretty sure now it was marked for the military as I think there is a post at the top. There were two further heavy trucks at 1 & 2 am! Other than that the mountains/hills were deserted and we never actually saw any one apart from 1 famer near the lower reaches on the south side. Its probably only about 5 or 6 miles as the crow flies but obviously a lot more with all the switchbacks. The north side is heavily pine forested but on the south its much more open with magnificent views.

 

Nice view

 Some more photos roughly in order from Istanbul down.

Blue Mosque

Camping in some other woods

Looking out over the Bosphorus

Stork atop some ruins

Bosphorus again - This could be you Alex

Ephesus

Long old streets, this place is huge

Latrine

Cherry that looks like a duck

Milli Park looking out onto Greek Islands

Volcano Kettle - Getting quite a bit of use in the woods. My favorite way to make a cuppa

Tortoise

Mountain trails

Lovely flowers i felt bad driving between them.

Pamalukke

Road out of the mountains.

22 to Kablo

The markers indicate 22 kms I think to Kablo. We have no idea where that is!  Its not on any of our maps or sat nav or google maps. We are following a trail across the mountains which I assume was once an official road as it seems to have distance markers hidden in the grass.
We are about 8 kms in I would guess, up a winding dirt road which is pretty bad in places, where streams have washed it away. We thought we would head up for some more camping in the woods as nipping up some of the forest tracks before has given us some good camping spots. This is a great drive through the mountain and the track seems very lightly used, then we found a lovey flat spot to camp so we have. It is total silence here and there was no sound made by humans for the last few hours. Then about 10 mins ago a truck lumbered up and stopped, voices and a torch looked about our site then off again. We are curious as to who it was and where they were going. Its certainly no longer a main route to anywhere. I guess we will find out in the morning as we are going to try and go all the way across and join a main road on the other side. There is some road marked on our old  paper  michlen map of europe but with the scale its hard to say. The osm maps on the computer indicate a track that goes half way and google maps nothing.

Anyhow since leaving Istanbul we have driven down to Selcuk south of Izmir camping in the woods up a logging track one eve then in a proper site by the sea last night. Today we visited Seluck for supplies then the Remains of a Roman town that are close by, these were amazing im sure its a fairly famous site (I can't think of the name now) as its huge a complete roman town with everything from the comunal toilets to a grand libabry and 2 ampitheaters.  Ill try and send add some pics with this post but more will follow when I get on proper internet.

Down the road from this is Milli park a national park with stunning views out to the greek islands and provided a refreshing dip in sea. Lots of wild boar running about to, well not so wild as I think they get by on tourist scraps.
There was no camping here hence we headed to the hills!

Not so wild pigs/boars? At Milli Park

Heading up the mountain

Libabry of Celsus at Ephesus

Istanbul

Today didnt start so well as I sat having tea watching a poor mother cat nose her dead kitten then eventually leave it to the crows. I then went to check the situation with the leaking clutch master cylinder and discovered that a brand new 3 weeks ago rad hose had worn through on a engine pulley and was letting out a fine mist. So spent till well after lunch driving about istanbul looking for a landy parts place. Most of them only do range rover, discos and freelanders. But on the verge of giving up and going to the one place in Ankara I had found on the web we came across Burak Sogut oto mekanik in Maslak.
These guys were great sorting the bits for a reasonable price and keeping us fed and watered with tea and some local cheese pastry thing. Threw in some free land rover t-shirts as well great guys. If you need a defender parts or fixed in istanbul I recommend them , they were well into landys and had some choice ones in for work.

Pics

Quad biking in the Czech. Im not sure who in their right mind would lend a not entierly sober people their quads. But that was the wonderfull Czech people who let us in on their BBQ that eve.

Greeks taking austerity measures seriously by never buying crash helmets, this is the one guy we saw with one and he must have not wanted to wear it out.

For you dad

Lunch by the med

Im not sure??

Lake in Poland where we stopped after Birkinau II

Lena smoking it up

Birkinau II

Novi Sad looking over tha Danube

Germany, Czech, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece

Slowly winding our way down through Europe, we would dearly love to spend longer still but also want to get on to Africa!
Germany - Kassel stayed with a good freind of Elena's and enjoyed some wonderful hospitality. There is a great massive waterfall thing there to in a country park called burgpark from the time of willhem the 4/5th or something. Excellent worth checking out if your ever there. On to Colditz.

Czech - Stayed in the mountains to the east. Wondeful scenery good cheap beer and a good BBQ at a lovely house by the lake. All topped off with some proper moonshine 50% proof stuff. Will have to come back here!

Poland - Only really stopped in at Auschwitz to take a look. In some ways it feels wrong that its a tourist attraction and I felt uneasy taking many photographs. Aware that its not exactly a "fun" place to visit it still suprises you exactly how much of an effect it has on you to see rooms filles with shoes, hair, glasses & other effects of the victims. We went for a guided tour and spent 3 hours listening to the horrors of the goings on there. There is a qoute in one of the buildings "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"
Anyway feeling a little somber we headed into the mountains of Poland towards Slovakia. Stopping for dinner overlooking sunset on a glorious lake.

Slovakia & Hungary we crossed the next day and on into Serbia where we stopped in Novi Sad which looks kind of Sad on the way in with many unfinised buildings abandoned. Serbia still has a old eastern european feel to it and whilst many of the other coutntries further up are now awash with Tesco extras, Drive through KFC's, Carrefour and the rest. Serbia is not with out these but still feels a little diffrent to the rest of "Europe". Anyway we enjoyed a nice local meal and some cheap accomodation with a quick tour of an old fort offering good views across the city and the Danube.

Macedonia - I feel bad we were just going to blast across, it has some fantastic scenery along the main road which winds around and through the mountains. With unspoilt rivers and lakes aplenty. We had to stop for a night! The warm weather also helped in this decision. If your ever thinking of coming here do, it looks wonderfull. Noted that the standard of driving was slowy deteriorating as we watched a trucker slowy overtake other trucks using the oncoming lane of of a contraflow system. It was 1 coned lane in either direction and he had to get out between cones then so narrowly get back in between trucks we seriously though there was going be a head on. This with a full size artic tanker. Im probably just a bit out of practice driving in some countires but this did seem particulary mental.

Onwards to greece.

Amsterdam

Finally into Europe. I love the feeling of getting off a ferry, its a kind of relief that your underway all the rushing about and trying to remeber bits is over now. You can just relax into travelling and life on the road because whatever you havent done or have forgotten its to late now.

Got a across on a DFDS ferry (Dunkerque), it was nice to catch up with a few guys from my previous workplace. And thanks for the tea and biscuits!

  

 If only all days on the channel were this nice!

First stop is my brothers just outside Amsterdam.

Stocking up on cheese!

We are off!

Finally the carnet has arrived this morning so we  packed up and got on the road. We bumped into the Queen in Rame as we left and joined her motorcade for a bit.  Nice of liz to stop by