Early mornings in Turkey are special. Particularly in the heat of the summer, very early mornings are the only time of day that it feels cool.
Years ago when I used to stay at my mum’s house in Köyceğiz we used to get up at 4.30 every morning to walk the enormous Kangal that she owned.
My mum, step dad and I would stumble out of bed, gulp down a cup of çay and set off. The first thing that hits you is the peace and quiet but as you adjust to the early hour you begin to notice all of the activity around you. I once spent five minutes stood in the middle of a forest trying to work out where a strange buzzing noise was coming from. It sounded like the noise from a large electricity pylon. It actually turned out to be millions of honey bees on a Eucalyptus tree!
Then there are the frogs, constantly chirping from their watery homes, the cicadas screaming from the trees and hundreds of different birds waking up with you.
This time of morning feels like a secret. You get to see things everyone else is missing out on. No one else is around and if you do bump into someone it feels like you belong to a select club. Only you are experiencing the beauty of the time of day.
We used to walk for miles, through liquidambar forest, dried up river beds, around pomegranate fields and along the lake front. Köyceğiz Lake in the early hours is one of the most beautiful sites you can witness.
My most recent Turkish early morning was a couple of weeks ago. I was somehow persuaded to go sea fishing on one of Volkan’s Adventures at 4.00 in the morning! Bearing in mind this persuasion took place at 1.30 the same morning I wasn’t overly keen on getting up that day. However, the stunning sunrise over the Dalyan Delta took my breath away. What started as a red glow on the horizon soon filled the sky with glorious colours that my camera couldn’t hope to capture. As the boat chugged through the reed beds hundreds of Egrets took flight above our heads. We stopped for a homemade Turkish breakfast before travelling out to sea. Normally at this time of day the sea is like glass and the sunrise kept on getting better.
And that’s the thing about getting up ridiculously early, somehow you never regret it. It might be tempting to stay in bed, roll over and go back to sleep. But, you can never be sure what you might miss, the most beautiful sunrise you will ever see? The view of the lake, like a millpond? A marsh harrier swopping above your head? Or just that feeling of complete and utter peace and the memory that you can call on whenever you feel the stress of modern life
You can experience all of this on our Sea Fishing Trip!
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