Day 10 - Flying in Fethiye

After a quick breakfast at the Hotel we quickly dashed towards town to make plans for the day.  We were advised that our blue cruise would not be leaving until Monday so we’d two whole days to kill in Fethiye but we needed to get ourselves sorted to find out what tours and activities might be available. 

The upside to visiting Turkey before ANZAC day is that the place is pretty quiet and the weather is really good.  The downside is the place is pretty quiet and the weather is really good.  What am I trying to say?  Well, it’s fantastic weather for doing stuff but there just aren’t enough tourists in town to justify a lot of businesses opening their doors for the summer.

  Consequently, almost every tour and activity we asked about was not available to us.  White Water Rafting, Diving, Canyoning, a day trip to Dalyan.  All unavailable when we enquired after them.  Everyone was happy to sell us a “12 island cruise” though (the standard sailing day trip out of Fethiye).  Since we’re sailing for 4 days from the 16^th, we weren’t interested in another sailing trip.  We were however, keen on the idea of Paragliding.  At £50 a pop ��" it wasn’t cheap but from all accounts Oludinez is one of the best places in the world for it, so we decided to give it a go.

We jumped in the back of a rickety old Chrysler 4WD and the driver took us to Oludinez where other patrons and the pilots jumped aboard.   It was then a long, slow journey 2000m up to the top of the highest mountain overlooking the bay.

  Towards the top, the road turned into little more than a goat track and the driver and pilots had the three Korean girls in the back screaming with fear as the 4WD leant perilously over the very steep edge of the track. 

Once at the top of the mountain, the pilots very quickly got themselves and us into order.  Whilst we took a few photos of the magnificent views from the mountain, they unbundled their wings harnessed us all up and before you knew it, Michelle and her pilot had thrown themselves off the side of the mountain.  I was next and my pilot had us off the mountain less than a minute later.  The ride lasted almost an hour.  In peak season the pilots need to make the trip 5 or 6 times a day, so they normally have to limit the rides to 30 minutes.  We were all spoilt.  Today there was no hurry and all the pilots seemed keen to stay up as long as they could, circling in search of Thermals and seemingly in no hurry to get back down to the beach.

  Michelle snapped away with the camera and I shot loads of video from the camera.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get a bit up on the blog site for everyone to check out.  We were a little disappointed that we had to come back to earth.  It did give us a chance to grab some lunch and some rays though. 

Once the driver returned us to Fethiye, Michelle and I turned our focus to planning a activity for tomorrow.  Again, the agent said that nothing could be arranged for tomorrow, so we resolved to do it all ourselves.  The plan: to catch a dolmus to Dalyan and get ourselves on a riverboat tour from there. 

On the way back from the Otogar (where we’d checked the frequency and cost of buses to Dalyan) we visited the Tomb of Amyntas.

  Another sign that the tourist season has yet to kick off, there was no one at the foot of the stairs to charge us entry!!  Bargain!!   The tomb is pretty impressive (yet another facade carved into a mountain face) but the view was fantastic. 

Michelle pegged back a game in the backgammon challenge before we went for a short run and then freshened up for dinner.  We hadn’t arranged for dinner in the hotel so we had to walk down to the harbour to grab a feed.  This time we weren’t trying to order food before sun set though, so we didn’t attract the same stares from staff and other patrons as we did last night.  Mish had a superb fish meal and I went for a lamb shish kebab, a great finale to a great day out.