One thing you may need to decide before you set out is how much of the route you are going to walk, how far you think you will go each day, and how long to allow. Here is what happened to us; your mileage will vary, of course.
We are reasonably fit, not overweight, and are (or were) aged 48 and 40 respectively. We are fairly used to day and weekend walking (we did the Norfolk Coast Path from Hunstanton to Cromer in two days, and found it tiring but very enjoyable) but had only done one long walk before, in 1998. We started walking on April 15th, and finished on May 5th; the weather was on the warm side, but mostly not too hot. We started early -- around 7 am usually -- and walked till mid or late afternoon, with the odd half day. The distances below are what we actually walked; vehicular travel is not counted.
The longer distances below are along the level or smoothly downhill. Shorter ones are either half days or steep/difficult walking!
Day 1: Fethiye to Kaya, 7 km. Started mid-afternoon, arrived about 7 pm.
Day 2: Kaya to between Kirme and Faralya, 13 km.
Day 3: Kirme/Faralya to Kabak (morning), 5 km.
Day 4: Kabak to Sidyma, 13 km.
Day 5: Sidyma to Letoon, 21 km.
Day 6: Lift from Letoon to Xanthos; walked from Xanthos (mid morning) to Uzumlu, 12 km.
Day 7: Uzumlu towards Akbel, 2 km then hitched a lift; Akbel to Patara, 12 km.
Day 8: Lift from Patara to main road, bus to Kalkan, and a good rest.
Day 9: Kalkan to Saribelen 17 km, then lift to Gokceoren.
Day 10: Gokceoren to Phellos 17km.
Day 11: Phellos to Kas, arrived mid-morning, 8 km.
Day 12: Rest day in Kas.
Day 13: Kas to just after Devecikarilan (in section 14), 11 km.
Day 14: Devecikarilan to Kilicli, 9 km, by lunchtime, then lift to Ucagiz.
Day 15: Boat from Ucagiz to café near Aperlae, then walk to Aperlae and back to Ucagiz, 11 km.
Day 16: Early bus from Ucagiz to Myra, walk to Alakilise 12 km.
Day 17: Alakilise back to Myra down the road (not recommended!), about 20 km, then bus to Finike.
Day 18: Bus Finike to Cirali, rested on beach for the afternoon, walked to Upper Chimera, 4 km.
Day 19: Upper Chimera to "yayla with gushing spring" after Beycik, 14 km.
Day 20: Yayla to Gedelme, 14 km.
Day 21: Gedelme towards Kemer 4 km, then hitched a lift to Sundance Village near Tekirova and Phaselis.
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We had intended to walk the whole route, but after a while we started to experience more tiredness than enjoyment, and Dave's legs developed various aches, so we took it easier. Days 10 and 13 in particular were quite demanding. So do pace yourself.
Remember: you are (presumably) doing the walk to enjoy yourself, so pace yourself accordingly! You don't have to do the whole thing, and some sections are boring anyway. It is hard to know how long you will take, so you unless you have definite constraints back home, you could think about just booking an outward flight, and buying a return near the end of your trip when you know what date you want. This is likely to be cheaper than trying to change your return ticket (we ended up throwing our original ones away) and is easy to do over the web -- there are plenty of internet cafés in the towns.
We found that our times over individual sections varied quite a bit from those in the book. We tended to go quite a lot faster along the level and (especially) uphill, but much slower on tricky downhill sections like the one from Belcegiz down to Gavuragili. Kate explained to us: "The times [in the book] are not my times but from the maps, modified by a formula which added a bit on for uphills. For trekking groups, they're about spot on. This is because groups move at the speed of the slowest and are always stopping for photos and things; they also don't carry big packs to slow them up downhill. |
Near the top of the looong climb up to Sidyma at the
end of a looooong day |
© Dave and Claire Carter, 2006,