Our fifth shore run on the Saga Eastern Mediterranean Cruise was to Antalya on the Turkish South coast. We awoke to find we were tied up in the harbour, so there was no chance of any surveying. However, we could still watch the sunrise.
I've been to Turkey on two previous trips. The first time was a three week late Spring trip around the country in 1986 with Dave Unsworth, Mark Ponsford and Nigel Goodgame. I returned for a week-long trip in late May/early June 15 with Nigel Jones, Simon Ingram and Bob Marchant to the South to see the Brown Fish Owls that had been discovered a few years earlier. It also allowed me to see Radde's Accentor, which I missed on the first trip, and Iraq Babbler, which had expanded into the Birecik area in the previous decade. As a consequence, there is no chance of any World Ticks for me in Turkey and nothing of note close to Antalya, that would warrant a trip to try and see.
It didn't take long for the early morning glow of the hills to disappear.
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With no interesting Birding options, I teamed up with Karen, Terry & Lexie to visit the Lower Duden Waterfalls, where there are waterfalls that fall into the sea. Due to a translating error we ended up at the Upper Duden Waterfalls, which are about ten miles further upriver. There is an uninspiring park near the entrance. However, the waterfalls themselves are quite scenic, as the locals have carved tunnels into the rocks to allow better views of the waterfalls.
On the lower part of the waterfalls, we found a cave with a small hollow. There were a group of Egyptian Fruit Bats roosting in the hollow. Not all were asleep, as we could hear them chattering to each other.
We had time for a quick coffee before we had to leave. There was a guy making and selling small glass ornaments by the entrance. He was very talented and I couldn't resist buying a couple of small glass penguins.
Our time at the waterfalls was up, so we headed back to Antalya and got the taxi driver to drop us close to the centre. As the centre was several miles from the port, Saga had laid on regular coach shuttles back to the port. First, we decided to explore the town centre.
The sun set well before dark, due to the hills near the port.
Despite the sun dropping, there was still light to look for Cetaceans once we left the port. We didn't see any Cetaceans, but there was a large flock of over one hundred and fifty Yellow-legged Gulls. We were sailing for Rhodes, which I will cover in the next Blog Post.
