Monday 26th September was quite a day! Kate, in her capacity of Miss Guided Tours or Miss Adventure, had organised a day trip. Captain Caveman and I called for Amanda & Greg to walk to the bakery opposite Özalp’s to meet the rest of the party; Adam, Kath, Mark, Kate, Daisy, John, Andrea, Janet, Kev, and Gaz. We departed on the minibus towards Fethiye as we were off for a day out at Babadağ, the place where paragliding is a popular sport. We left Dalyan at 10am, by 11.30am I had already had my first nervous wee and had my cable car ticket in my hand. The cost was 170 lira (£8 approx) each so not expensive for tourists. It became apparent that Gay Gaz, Amanda, Daisy and I were not looking forward to the cable car, at all. I’m not scared of heights but I have trouble trusting anything that looks precarious.
As people dallied about waiting for Gay Gaz before getting in to a cable car, Captain Caveman and I were already at the front of the queue. We got told by staff to get in and the maximum allowed per car was 8, I hurried in and sat down as it moved along the platform. No one else had got in with us and the car behind us had a guy with a parachute in. I was terrified and it felt like the longest journey ever as it climbed up to the first station. It was definitely the highest cable car I’d ever been on but Captain Caveman thought it was amusing to see me so scared.
We all reconvened at the restaurant which involved a walk over a bridge with a glass floor down the middle. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have stood on the glass floor but compared to the cable car it was far less worrying and people were standing in the way on each of the sides. There wasn’t enough room at the restaurant for all of us to sit together so, while the rest of the group sat in the sun, Captain Caveman, Amanda, Greg and I sat at a separate table in the shade. Captain Caveman and I ordered burgers and a beer which we really enjoyed and it wasn’t too expensive. Greg had a beef wrap, also good, and Amanda shared her chicken salad with a wasps.
The next part of ascending the mountain involved a chair lift, which I have been on before when I went skiing a long time ago. Both Amanda and I didn’t want to go on it but I kind of talked her in to it, only to regret it. I had a complete meltdown on this one and hated every second. Obviously Captain Caveman and Greg were fine with it but Amanda and I were not and were extremely emotional when we got off. Poor Greg had a migraine coming on but luckily I had medication with me so he was able to prevent it. Captain Caveman took himself off for a laugh and couldn’t believe how scared I had been.
As the guys decided to carry on right to the top of the mountain, Amanda and I decided we would walk down to the cable car station – there was no way we would get on the chair lift again. We managed to watch lots of mental paragliders jumping off the mountainside but we couldn’t get our head round the 5 year old child doing it with an adult.
By 3pm we were back at the 1700m cable car height and about to go back down. Kate had lost Mark, who had wandered up to the mountain top, with John, later than everyone else so she felt like she was herding cats. On the way up I had sat with my back to the sea but on the way down I thought it might be better to face the drop – it wasn’t. Daisy, Greg and I were facing forward while Captain Caveman and Amanda were going backwards. Halfway down both Daisy and I spotted the same fraying rope above us, at exactly the same time. Captain Caveman tried to reassure us by saying it would still be safe but managed to make it worse. I felt like I was hyperventilating for most of the cable car journey and, although the views were amazing, all I could concentrate on was getting out.
The next part of our day involved a drive in to Fethiye, where there was a quick pit stop at Address restaurant and bar where we managed to smash some crockery moving tables. Amanda, Greg and Captain Caveman tootled off to the Turkish delight shop, Kate collected the water taxi tokens for us all to go to Çalış.
Of course no trip is complete without a visit to Charcoal Palace for fish and chips, the draft Becks beer was now 40 lira (£1.95) per pint so some people took advantage of that and most had the fish and chips. Some had battered sausage and onion rings. It was great, as always, and I felt very full and sleepy on the journey back home.
It had been a great day out and now Captain Caveman fancied doing a tandem paraglide jump from the top of Babadağ. I think I will be busy that day!
Photo Credit – Captain Caveman
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