"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Kleopatra Beach Hike - Jan 2025 - Tekirova, Antalya

Within half an hour of the end of the Swim/Run race, I spotted a whatsapp message from Rabinath in our Walking Group chat for Turkey and it was clear the guys hadn't hit the road yet. I told them I could be in the lobby in 10 minutes, which was a bit ambitous, but I made it after devoting 5 of those minutes to washing the seawater out of my race kit.

Rabinath and Tarit had cooked up a plan to drive to Tekirova and hike another section of the Lycean Way (the common theme of our Turkey hikes) with views of the mountains inland and the bays and beaches of the coast the other. Antalya is famous for this combination, which had seen us take a cable car to the snow-covered summit of Tahtali Dag a few days before and swim in the sea when the sun was out, wetsuit not required.

We parked up in Tekirova - like the other towns on this strip west of Antalya it had the out-of-season quietness, but there was more of a buzz around this place than some of the others. We found our way to a trailhead and this one had a reassuring sign with a map. Although the barrier was down, we could just walk round it, through a kind of security post, where we got a smile and a nod from the guys before heading up a jeep-track of a trail past a very noisy construction site. We were hoping that noise would not be the overriding impression of the walk and fortunately we were soon around a bend in the trail and out of earshot.

The terrain was coarse gravel underfoot, with views westward along a succession of bays and headlands, all soaked in warm, winter sunshine. After enjoying the new views around each corner for the best part of an hour, shaded by pines and red-barked strawberry trees, we decided we'd hit our turnaround point and headed back. The route home included a diversion to the wonderfully-named Kleopatra Beach, where we found a lone sunbather gazing out to sea and took turns on a rope-swing.

It was Rabinath's inspiration for us to hang out at the beach for a few minutes and enjoy the quiet sounds of the surf and the placid sea, but I was glad he suggested it as I rarely take much time to pause. I think Tarit and I are more of the crack on and get there and back school? The concept ot staying in one place for a while to soak it up rather than keep on moving through the landscape seemed novel. It seemed pretty good.

From the beach, we decided to take a trail that was suggested on the mapping apps, that would rejoin our original main-path quite close to the car. Recent experiences in Turkey had taught me this might backfire! But on this occasion it proved the right call. We climbed up from the sea, towards a ridge with amazing views over to Tahtali Dag where we could just glimpse the shining cable-car station on the summit where we had encountered snow and ice and watched clouds forming just a few days earlier. We heard the barking of a dog as the trail led alongside a farm (labelled a zoo on the map?) but the fence blocking our path had a wide open gateway and we made it back to our main trail, and our starting point, with ease.

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