Cycling along the Black Sea Coast.

After visiting Cappadocia and cycling due North, we reached the Black Sea coast at Samsun. We went down from the plateau for more than 700 meters and that gave us a taste of what was to come: a lot of up and down, but we were blissfully unaware at that point.

*Going down to Samsun, our first glimpse of the Black Sea*

Cycling out of Samsun was nice and easy, through a large river delta just west of town. That’s where we stayed the first night, close to the bird sanctuary Kızılırmak Deltası Kuş Cenneti. Camping inside the sanctuary is of course not allowed, but just before there is plenty of beach to pitch your tent. If you are into bird watching, this is the place for you. We are not, as we know only 3 types of birds (small, medium and large), but we enjoyed it nonetheless. The buffalo’s did give us a scare in the early morning, we did not expect to see those. We joined the D010 at Bafra and basically followed this all the way.

*Buffalo on the beach at the bird sanctuary*

So we started optimistic, as this was all flat and easygoing, and we cycled 123 km in less than 8 hours. We checked into a hotel in Gerze, for the last shower before we would reach Istanbul. Istanbul was only 700km away, and based on our track record that would take a week max! The next day however, just past Sinop, we got to know the real Black Sea coast. It’s beautiful; trees everywhere and sometimes feels like cycling through the jungle. But…

*If the route looks like this, you’ll know it’s going to be a challenge*

Oh boy, the constant steep hills! No way that our next shower would be in one week time… Rigged cliffs, plummeting into the sea at crazy angles. We do not go up high, only once we had to climb to 500m; for the rest we bounced up and down between 0 and 200 meters. But all the climbs are steep enough for us to go directly into “granny gear“. Our daily distance went down from 100 to 120 km a day, here we would be happy to get to 80 km. We would be so annoyed; after every turn we encountered a valley, where we first would go steeply down to a river (takes 3 minutes at 50 km/h) and then up on the other side (would take 20 minutes at 5 km/h). It would just feel like climbing all day. This went on for 6 days from Sinop to Ereğli (470km) and it was by far the hardest part of our trip through Turkey.

Luckily we were rewarded with awesome views. After every turn there was an impressive cliff, with the rock layers exposed, and a deserted beach at the bottom. The road was small, lizards would scuttle away when we passed, we met some tortoises on the way. And we were lucky with the weather. The black sea coast is so green because it rains a lot, but we made it through without getting wet.

After Ereğli the road became flatter again. We passed through busy Zonguldak: the nation-wide lockdown has ended on May 17th, and Post-Lockdown Syndrome is real! Streets were busy again, loud music everywhere, people were standing in line at the post office and hair dresser, we saw emotional family reunions. People are back out and Turkey is Turkey again.

Then we had to decide how to tackle Istanbul. Istanbul by bike is no fun, and we had a good experience with the ferry in Yalova. And Yalova was a cute little town, so how bad could the road to there be? So we turned to Izmit on the D605 at Kandira, which was busy, without a shoulder and to make matters worse there was a new road being built next to it, so trucks and rocks and dust everywhere. Past Izmit we got on the D130 to Yalova, where we arrived yesterday. We cycled over 160 km in one day, a new record. Exactly 2 months ago we arrived here by ferry, so we closed our loop of Turkey! Today we will take the ferry and cross to the European side of Istanbul and then onwards to the border with Bulgaria.