2020-01-31 Day 445 Fri

We took the inland route back to Tepebasi. The route up to the white road on the ridge top was a little out of our way.

Saw a triangular hill which we think was natural, in fact the road deviated around it.

Next we stopped to have a look at this old church and monastery.

Half way up we perched on a switchback looking out at the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Here we had some internet with our Cypriot SIM.

I chatted to Ngaire and got some of our Tahiti photos up on the shared album.

The drive along the top of the hill had wonderful views and was not well used. Although white on our map it was sealed but very narrow. 



 




 We stopped at some information boards and learnt the Turkish side of the conflict.

There is also a tank which was damaged with a land mine and shunted off the road to allow others to pass. It has been made into a monument.

At the end of this fantastic little road we noticed a castle.

The Blue Med and the ferry we would travel on bak to mainland turkey that night

 We stopped and although late in the day we still had 1.5 hours to explore. 


 












 



What a wonderfully preserved place St Hilarion castle was.

Prince John's Tower

The views were stunning

It was in 3 sections with 2 royal apartments. The Royal apartment on the West side would have been amazing. It was two storied and although some of its west wall was missing one could still envisage it. 
A huge room with arched ceiling .

Upstairs many and varied windows looking out over the valley and the NW tip of western Cyprus. I assume upstairs was divided into rooms but internal walls and roof was missing.

Very much worth the visit.

Next down into Kyrenia/ Girme where we picked up our ferry tickets. I even got a refund for the cabin I could not book.

The castle sadly was closed so missed out on that.

We drove to a restaurant and sat there for the rest of our time drinking wine and eating some nibbles.

At 21:00 we lined up about 4 from the gate but realized we needed to get out and line up at the passport control. Got our passports stamped and at the customs they did not like that our “visa” was out of date. We were told to go over to the other building and talk to the boss. We did this a young English speaking customs official helped to tell boss lady what had happened. The young lady said oh maybe the other Customs officials were new and didn’t know. She did mention twice that it was not our fault. Boss lady after a phone call wrote a few sentenceson the bottom of the form and we were gone from there. Back at Police control John drove through as I showed our PP stamp then I returned to customs window, the lady was not too pleased with the writing but I did get a smile from her in the end. All good. I was given a form to hand to the loading guys at the ship. Now where? There were cars and trucks parked everywhere. We did realize that some were here already before the gates opened so we drove down the wharf passed all the trucks to the ship Via Mare. Here we stopped at the ramp but were told to park. We did so. I made tea to fill our bottles for the night ahead. It was already 23:00 so I lay on the bed and got a couple hours sleep before we were told to load. 
 

Again we went up a deck on the lift with two other small vehicles. Such a slow process. We were parked out under the stars end the aft of the ship.

We cracked the windows and with the lid down, lay under the quilt in clothes for the night. She did roll once or twice but a good crossing.

 76km Camp site  4m alt.