A long but very smooth day of travel has seen us travel from The Cottage to Dalaman in Turkey. The drive to Manchester was easy enough and from arriving at the car park, to getting bags checked and through security took a mere ten minutes! Possibly an airport speed record! It left plenty of time to have a brew and find the plane. All very leisurely.

This climbing trip has crept up on us a bit. We booked flights and accommodation ages ago, but it was only last night that we discovered that we hadn’t actually finished the job and it was only when we were trying to work out how long it would take to drive to the airport car park, that we realised we hadn’t actually booked it! Or checked other critical things like car insurance and phone data! Nothing like a last minute rush of activity when all you want is an early night!

We were one of four flights arriving in Dalaman. We must be well off season as the airport can certainly cater for much more! It felt a little spooky without many people inside and on the side of the runway were military hangers with drones stored inside.

As arranged, a guy was waiting outside with my name on a board. We jumped into his car and drove to the garage where our rental was waiting. We had just missed a big storm and the road was covered in puddles, but as we left the garage, the sun gave a final blast.

We’re staying tonight in a big hotel in Dalaman. We booked it to save doing the extra drive to the coast now, but also be out had a restaurant so we could just eat and crash out. However, it turns out we are the only guest! So the restaurant is closed! Luckily the centre of town is only 10mins walk away, so we ventured in on foot. We passed one cafe that had a sign offering ‘fried ice cream’. Gotta love a bit of translation issues! A short search found an okay looking place, so we took a seat and ordered ‘something’!

Turns out we’d ordered loads! It was all fresh, very delicious and came with an affordable bill of £14. It was also fun to be able to watch the goings on outside. Kids playing, old people meeting for ice creams, mopeds doing wheelies down the road and all manner of motorcycles and cars doing in all directions down the one way street. One moped was held together with copious amounts of sellotape around the handlebars! Suitably bonkers and one of the joys of travel!