We spent the rest day in our room sleeping, reading and writing and didn’t go out until in the late afternoon. Last time we did an unplanned stop like this was in Elhovo in Bulgaria. The similarity between Elhovo and Vezirköprü is that both are small provincial towns not really famous for anything, but still very representative for ordinary towns in each country. There are no must see’s which makes it a lot easier to just use the rest day for resting.

The hotel had a very nice breakfast buffet. Not big, but good and only lacking one thing….. coffee…… But hotels without coffee is not a problem for us who carry our own kitchen and supply of instant coffee. We simply lit our own stove in the bathroom to heat some water to make the coffee needed for making our restday complete.

Compact living…..

Although possible, we didn’t relly want to cook our dinner in the bathroom and in the late afternoon we went out to find something to eat. When we passed a barber shop I decided I might as well get shaved. We went in and as usual it was assumed that Wej is from Japan while I tried to tell that I am from Sweden. The guys in the shop were very interested in what brought a Japanese and a Swiss tourist to their little town….. 😉

Within in a minute we were asked if we would like some tea which we gratefully accepted. They then sent a runner to a nearby shop to get the the tea and when he got back my face was already covered in a thick layer of white foam which made the drinking process a bit hard.

Maybe the tea will be better with some whipped cream…. 😉

The remaining distance to the port city of Samsun was 115 km and with a total climb of 1500 meters. It was too much for one day but not enough for two full days either so we decided to start late and ride slowly and do it in two shorter days instead. The hills were not steep and we were much more worried about the dark clouds in the horizon than the hill itself. It soon started to rain and we had to stop to put on our rain jackets.

Our plan was to camp but since the there were dark grey, almost black clouds on the sky, we decided to go into the next town to see if we could find any cheap place to stay at. If not, we would camp as planned. The town (Havza) we had entered has many termal baths and thus a large number of hotels and guesthouses. We were soon checked in at one of the guesthouses and this was our cheapest paid accomodation so far since leaving Sweden. We paid 30 TL (115 SEK, 13 €) together and just as we had locked the bikes it started to rain heavily. A very good timing 🙂

We seem to have entered a period of being lazy and the following morning we didn’t manage to start cycling until 11 AM. With 85 km to go and more than 800 meters to climb it looked like it could be a long day after all. After only a few kilometers we entered a big two lane motorway with a wide shoulder. It was good because we could cycle safely and quickly but that kind of road is a real bore to ride a bicycle on.

Fast and safe but very boring road to cycle on

After a while it was time for lunch. We found a gas station with a restaurant that had tables outside allowing us to keep an eye on our bikes and while eating we could watch two guys cleaning trucks. They had made their own brushes with connected water hose. I guess it works just as well as a ready made ones.

Home made brush for washing of trucks

Soon we were on our way again and after having reached the pass at 860 meters we could look forward to a 45 km long downhill ride 🙂 It was a bit chilly but when climbing we never felt it was a problem, but we got cold as soon as we started the fast descent. We stopped to put on more clothes at a truck weighing station and were soon invited inside for tea.

Weighing station

All trucks passing on the highway need to be weighed and the system is completely automatic. The trucks drive slowly over the scales while a camera scans their registraion plates. The staff at the station only monitors the system and if there is a violator they will check the driver’s license and send a report to the police who will issue a fine.

Inside the weighing station

As soon as we left the weighing station it started to rain lightly. We kept rolling but didn’t let the speed get too high due to the wet road surface and poorer breaking ability. After a while the rain got more intense and we got soaking wet, but not really cold. At one of the few flat sections a car passed us, then stopped and a guy came out and wanted to help us. He felt pity for us and insisted to load us, our bikes and our luggage into his little car. We weren’t cold and we have been through worse conditions than this so we declined his kind offer and kept rolling towards the coastal city of Samsun.

Stopping at gas stations usually means getting an invitation for tea with the attendants

The room we got at the second hotel was on the topfloor and had a giant balcony which is larger than the room itself. It also has a fire place and a wonderful view of the Black Sea and Samsun’s harbour and city center. Although a bit expensive, we quickly saw the opportunity the balcony provided us with. We could easily lit our stove there and cook our dinner and thereby save some of the cost for the accomodation.

Cooking on the balcony

The experience from yesterday was that we should start early and move as far as possible and not do any detours before the heat strikes. We hit the road at 7.15 from the gas station we had “checked in” at. While riding the remaining 3 km into the center we passed seven gas stations and a couple of them looked like potential camping sites 🙂

Just before the city center we spotted a an old fortress on top of a giant hill. Had it not been for the height of the hill we might have considered to pay it a visit. Without any breakfast in our bellies, we stopped to buy bread and youghurt and continued cycling until we found a park with running water where we could enjoy our morning meal.

Fortress in Boyabat. Too high up on the hill for us to visit

Breakfast in a park

If you remember my post from yesterday (Day 49) I mentioned that we rode on a huge dusty road without traffic but with brick factories and rice paddies at its both sides. The section we rode on todad had no brick factories and a little more traffic but much more rice paddies. Since the valley was not completely flat terraces had been made to maintain the water in each paddy. It looked a bit like northern Thailand.

Rice paddies on terraces

Rice paddies between Boyabat and Duragan

We were speeding down a long slope when I heard Wej shout ”stop”. When at standstill she told me she had spotted a tiny turtle in the middle of the road. Turtles need to be rescued so we went back. It was not bigger than a tennisball and she carefully lifted it from the middle of the road and released it in the grass beside.

About 10 minutes later we were once again speeding down a slope when we spotted yet another turtle in the middle of a curve. This once was a lot bigger and it was about 1 meter from the the centerline on our side. We stopped to rescue it and while Wej parked her bike I rolled across the road to film her rescue. Then we heard the sound of an approaching truck from behind the bend and had to wait. It was not only one truck, but two. The first driver saw the turtle and passed over it. As the second truck got closer I could immediately see from where I was standing that this wasn’t going to end well. When the truck’s left front wheel a few seconds later hit the turtle we could hear a loud cracking sound when the poor turtle was sprayed all over the road.

If we had arrived only 30 seconds earlier we would have been able to rescue that turtle too. Turtles has a special meaning to Thai people and Wej was sad for it for a long time.

When we passed the town of Duragan the nature shifted once again. The valley got narrower and the little river flowing in its middle had been dammed. We left the many rice paddies behind and now continued on the road that now had the lake (dam) on the left hand side and the steep mountains on our right hand side. It was truly beautiful and the road was pleasant to ride on since there were not much traffic.

Our aim was to reach Vezirköprü which would be some 60 km from Duragan. We thought that it as usual would be the occassional village and gas station, but there was nothing. This section was almost completely empty and it was like riding in Sweden….

The water in our bottles get hot in the strong afternoon sunshine and everytime we passed a well we stopped to refill with cold and fresh water.

Fresh, cold and good tasting water at the road side

Maybe it is not true to say that there was nothing between Duragan and Vezirköprü. We passed 2-3 small villages, but only one of them had a place where we could stop and get our afternoon tea and coke. From the forest we also heard bells from cows so there was some kind of activity after all.

Traffic jam….

Turkey is very mountainous and we have only had one or two days without hills. We have only managed to cycle 70-80 kilometers a day due to hills and heat and it has been a little frustrating. Today we made good progress and it seemed that we would be able to ride longer than 100 km in a day for the first time since entering Istanbul.

Mountains and water – just beautiful

We exited the narrow valley some 30 km from Vezirköprü and when not riding in a valley anymore it got more hilly. We cycled up and down long hills and we felt a bit exhausted after having been on the road constantly for six days. Knowing that we would have to climb another 1500 meters between Vezirköpru and Samsun on the Black Sea coast we decided to change our schedule and take a day off in Vezirköpru to regain strength to do the final climbs before reaching the sea again. We called off our plans for finding a good spot for our tent and headed straight into town to find a hotel.

We loved this beautiful and isolated area

We quickly found one that was the cheapest so far in Turkey. 50 TL (190 SEK, 20 €) including breakfast and wifi on the room. Deal!!! We checked in for two nights.

This was the right place for our rest day

As mentioned in previous posts our ad-hoc host Deniz in Istanbul had told us not to miss Tasköprü which is famous for its garlics. People we meet often ask where we are going and during the last few days our reply has been ”Bangkok, but first a stop to enjoy garlic in Tasköprü”

It is interesting to see the reaction in people’s faces when two complete strangers on bicycles tell that they are on the way to visit what their local community is famous for. So thank you Deniz for informing us about Tasköprü and providing us not only with an interesting place to visit, but also an icebreaker in our communication with people we meet along the way.

Garlic fields forever….

After having chosen not to camp beside any empty coffins the previous night we had pitched our tent 13 km west of Tasköprü. We left the camp in the early morning with the plan to have a breakfast with intense garlic aroma in Turkey’s own garlic capital. As soon as we entered the town we quickly found out that garlics are not in season now and we had to leave the town without being able to stock up on garlic to use in our coming dinner.

Finally arriving in Turkey’s garlic capital

The town looked nice with a little stream flowing through its centre and an old stone bridge with beautiful arches across. Tasköprü has an annual garlic festical in September when Miss and Mr. Garlic are choosen. The festival attracts thousands of visitors and I bet it will be much easier to find fresh garlic then.

One interesting thing about Turkey is that gas stations don’t sell road maps. We have one that we bought at the border shop when entering from Bulgaria. It covers all of Turkey and is not detailed enough for our needs. Turkey is a large country and even our lousy map has a few places marked as sights worth to visit. If a map with too few details tells there is something to see, then it must be worth to visit for sure.

Tasköprü has one of those few places and it was called Pompeipolois and is located just outside town. We rode there and found a steep track up on a hill. We didn’t know what it was and couldn’t ask anyone about it either. When we got to the top of the hill we met a sheperd and asked for ”Pompeipolios” and he pointed to two fenced areas. When arriving there we understood that this probably was a place that had been excavated by archeologists.

Pompeipolios excavation site

There was not much to see so we rolled back down again and then met a guy walking towards us with a walkie talkie in his hand. He asked if we were tourists and pointed towards a building and made a sign that we interpreted as to wait while he went for the keys.

Part of some very old greek inscription

It turned out that Pompeipolios was a Roman city that had been abandoned and that was now being excavated. In the building they stored 2000 year old artifacts that the man with the walkie-talkie wanted to show us. Later we went to have tea with him in his little office and chat via google translate and do some reading about the site in English information leaflets he had.

Old stuff in the warehouse. I wish I could recall more of my history lessons…

We then continued towards Boyabat. It was hot and after a while I got completely exhausted due to low levels of both glycogen and motivation. This is not a new situation for me and when it happens when riding with my team in Elmhults Sport Club there is always some kind team mate who will push for a while. When only being two people carrying large panniers it is not so easy to push and certainly not for Wej. The only thing I could do was to stay close to her rear wheel and just keep going.

I was so exhausted I needed to stop to get some sleep on a bench at a gas station. Meanwhile Wej sat and read the Lonely Planet guide book on our Ipad

After a late döner lunch I got my energy back and we could go on riding. We entered a big valley with rice paddies in the middle and dry mountains around it. There were also a large number of factories producing bricks and other kind of building materials.

In the late afternoon it was time to try to find somewhere to sleep. After a day of hard work in the sun on dusty roads we really wanted to shower. Just a few kilometers before the town of Boyabata we found a gas station and stopped to check if we could sleep there.

The AyGaz station outside Boyabat – our home for the night.

In yesteday’s post I started to call the guys who fill tanks as ”tank-fillers”. My friend and cycling team mate Iain, who is from Scotland dropped me a mail to tell they are alled ”gas station attendants”. Thanks a lot for the clarification Iain…. 🙂

The attendant at this station got exited when he saw us and started to talk for a long time about something that we understood as another cyclist who went from Spain to India and who had pitched his tent at this gas station. When we asked if we could camp there too he took us around to show possible places to put the tent.

Wej and the happy gas station attendant / tank-filler… 🙂

After an acrobatic shower in ice cold water with a less than one meter long water hose connected to a tap 30 cm above the floor, we were ready to socialise with the local people
This gas station had very few customers so the attendant had plenty of time to take care of us. We got lots of cups of tea and in later he shopped up some cucmbers, tomatoes and sliced some bread for us to have as a shared evening meal.

The German speaking truck driver and his son.

At the attendants office there were two more people sitting watching football on TV. It was a middle age man and his teenage son. The man spoke a bit of German and acted as interpreter. He told us he was a truck driver who had been driving his truck almost all over Europe and was now waiting to go to one of the nearby brick factories for loading. His and my German was just as bad and we could hardly communicate. He seemed to know the attendant and spoke to him as they were old friends since long time. Maybe he usually stops at this gas station while waiting for loading, or maybe it is simply the Turkish way of life of sharing an evening with a complete stranger….

It was a nice evening and we went to bed later than planned. Since it was warm we had only pitched our innertent to improve ventilation. It was nice to be able to fall asleep while watching the stars from inside the tent.

Using only the inner tent

The unburied and unsalted pasta

After an early start from our mountain lodge looking hotel we had a nice downhill for 5 minutes before it was time to start climbing again. It was a big main road and that kind of road is usually not so exciting from a pure cycling perspective. Eventhough the road itself was dull, the view from it was very nice. As we got higher and higher the nature started to change. Below it was dense forests but on the higher altitudes the forests were replaced by mor bush looking smaller trees.

Mountain lodge looking hotel where we were the only guests

Our aim was to reach the pass before it got too hot and then enjoy being cooled down while rolling down in the heat during the early afternoon. The wind had been on our backs for a few days and helped us climb the slow ascent, but all of a sudden it changed and we had to ride the last 5-6 km to the top with a headwind.

Look at the cloud. Are they testing nuclear bombs somewhere nearby or what…?

We got a nice view of Karabük city from above and we could then see that there was some kind of ring road around the city. It also appeared that if we went to the city we would have to climb out of it again while we would remain at the same altitude if staying on the ring road. Staying on a boring ring road or ride through a city we didn’t intend to see anyway was an easy decision to make.

Let’s hope we won’t see more snow on this trip….

Deniz – the kind woman who hosted us in Istanbul when Wej’s bottom bracket broke – had told us that we had to go to town of Tasköprü which is known to have the best garlic in all of Turkey. Since we trust Deniz the aim for the day was to get camp somewhere before Tasköprü.

Finally at the pass at 1230 meters altitude. The highest so far on this tour

We have visited hundreds of gas stations since we left home and all those outside Sweden have had staff filling the customers’ tanks. In Sweden, and maybe in Poland too (can’t remember), the customers have to fill their own tanks and go inside to pay. I don’t know what such a position at a gas station would be called, but since we meet a lot of people working in that position we need to call them something and the word we use is ”tank-filler”.

All Turkish gas stations have toilets that visitors can use for free. Some even have a simple shower and in the late afternoon we stopped at such a station to shower and see if it maybe was possible to camp there.

The owner of the gas station and some of his tank-fillers where sitting at a table drinking tea and as usual it took about 30 seconds after our arrival before we were offered tea. While Wej went in to have a shower I started to talk to the staff. Unable to communicate I asked if there was a wifi internet, which it was. With my iphone now connected to the internet we could start to have a meaningful conversation.

I started the google translate app and wrote in simple English:

– We, put, tent, where ?

The tank-filler pointed at an empty house on the other side of the road and I typed:

– safe ?

He nodded and I walked to take a look. Having passed dozens and dozens of graveyards the place looked to me as just another little cemetary so I picked up my iphone and typed:

– cemetary?

The tank-filler asked to borrow the phone and typed in something in Turkish that was translated to english as.

– unburied

I started to visualize the plot for a new horror movie called:

”The cycle tourists and the unburied – based on a true story”.

What was it that was unburied that he thought it would be a fine idea for us to sleep beside. My confusion got bigger and I once again turned to the Google Translate, our saviour, and typed:

– coffins?

He once again nodded as an answer and I started to get second thoughts and typed:

– corpses ?

He didn’t understand so I tried again by typing:

– dead bodies?

He than laughed, took the phone and typed something that was translated as:

– empty

Hmmmm…….I now thought that I had started to understand what this was all about but to be sure I typed:

– coffin factory ?

The tank-filler then nodded as a confirmation.

So what to do – should we sleep beside a bunch of ready made or half ready coffins laid out on the lawn in front of the house opposite the gas station or go on cycling to see if we could find another place that would bring us more peace of mind? We decided that sleeping beside coffins is something we all will have to do sooner or later and not anything we wanted to do right now so we said good bye to the guys at the gas station and their neighbouring coffin factory and continued along the road.

Camp site photo taken the following morning

After half an hour of cycling we found a place we thought would make a decent place to pitch our tent. It was in the corner of a field where cows had grazed, there where some high walls around it that prevented us from being seen from the road and 50 meters away there was a well with a tap where we could fetch water to drink and do our dishes in.

We put up our tent and started to make cook our pasta but soon discovered that we had run out of salt. Unsalted pasta tastes very plain but we managed to spice it up with some tomato salsa and canned tuna fish that we had bought in Bulgaria. Not any 5 star dinner, but at least we didn’t have to go to bed hungry 🙂

Cooking unsalted spagetti

Birthday

Wej prepared coffee and sandwhiches for me to enjoy at the bed in our room at the guesthouse 🙂 Isn’t she wonderful? Then the owner himself came with lit sparklers to celebrate the birthday child still in bed… 🙂

We allowed ourselves to be slow in the morning as a birthday gift and didn’t leave the guesthouse until 10.30. The bikes were parked in backyard of the butcher’s shop beside our guesthouse and when I went to get them he was busy chopping up a few dozens of chicken.

Outside the chicken butcher’s shop

On our way out of Safronbolu we passed the historical center and saw even more than we saw yesterday. Most of the houses look really well kept and I understand that this city is a tourist attraction. Safranbolu is declared as world heritage by UNESCO and I wonder what it means to the owner of the house that we passed that unfortunately had burnt down. Do they have to make an exact copy of the destroyed house or can they build a new one in the old style? If any of you readers know anything about the rules for renovation and rebuilding in a world heritage, then please tell me what will happen to that burnt house.

A mosque with a different looking architecture at the old town in Safranbolu

Yesterday it was a tough climb of 150 meter to reach the guesthouse which our GPS said was at 503 meters above the sea level. Knowing that we during the coming two days will have to climb to 1200 meters altitude it felt really unnecessary to start the day with rolling down to 450, then climb back to 500 before descending to 350 m.

When climbing the last part out of Safranbulo we once again noted a turtle on the road. This road was wide and the turtle was just in the middle of it. Fortunately there weren’t many cars passing by. Click on the arrow in the video link below and you can follow Mr. Turtle’s adventure when crossing the street.

Starting late is equal to not getting far when the mid day heat strikes. Since we started to cycle late we were out of our eating routines and got hungry only after some 20 km. Finding places to eat in Turkey is mostly easy, but not today. We had to ride for almost 45 minutes before finding a truck drivers’ lunch restaurant. A dozen of trucks were parked outside and the food was pre-prepared and we had to go to the counter and point at the food we wanted to order. It tasted good but not even being hot we felt that the 10 TL we had to pay per person was a bit high.

Our lunch at the truck drivers’ restaurant

After lunch we wanted coffee and found a tea vendor along the road some 6-7 km after our lunch break. It was a simple stall and we weren’t sure the vendor would have coffee for sale. When asked he showed he had Nescafe 3 in 1 (coffee, coffeemate and sugar) and none of us like sweet coffee so we asked if he could prepare coffee with the instant coffee we had instead, which he happily did.

The tea and coffee vendor’s stall

Our mission today was to try to climb the remaining 900 meters before the road starts to descend to the Black Sea again. Starting late, being tired and suffering in the heat we moved far slower than planned. In Turkey it is common with water taps along the roads for travellers to drink or wash their faces in. We stopped to soak our caps and sleeves to get a bit of refreshment.

3 minutes after leaving the well Wej said my wheel looked strange and when I looked at it it was half empty. We stopped to take a look and could only confirm that in the league of flat tyres the standing is now 3-0.

My birthday present: Flat tyre number 3 due to parking on something sharp

It was hot in the sunshine so we decided to take our bikes to the shade of a tree on a field beside the road. Right in the middle of the job to fix the flat tyre it started to rain – not very fun when a lot of the bags are opened, we already had our sleeves and caps soaked in water and especially not on my birthday…

Wej pushing her bike back to the road from the shade (!!!!) of the trees

When the tyre was fixed we came to a section which very much resembled Sweden in the summer. A wet road and a forest of pinetrees. It felt very much like it does at home.

It looks like Sweden…

We were tired and a bit disappointed for not being able to reach where we wanted and decided to skip camping and instead check in at the first motel we could find to celebrate my birthday there instead of in the tent. The hotel we found looks like an alpine mountain lodge and we are the only guests. We were too tired to eat anything proper so we only had some light food and went to bed early in order to be able to start early and avoid much of the early afternoon heat.

Do you remember that we 2-3 weeks ago complained about having forgotten our foldable plastic coffee cups at home?

I am happy to tell that the problem now is solved…..

Özlem and Volkan had a got a picnic set from a friend who has plenty of such sets at work to hand out as souvenirs from his company so they could easily get a replacement set. We were very happy for the gift but only accepted one to save weight and space. The new cup is insulated and will keep our coffee hot if it starts to snow again or the beer cold if it is too hot. Let’s hope for the latter being what is going to happen….

Enjoying morning coffee in our new mug

Özlem provided us with food to heat for dinner before we left her. We got ”dolmas” (stuffed paprikas/peppers), spagetti and pieces of fried meat left over from the previous dinner. Since the guys at the gas station offered us dinner yesterday, we still hadn’t started to eat all the food we had so we decided to have dolmas and spagetti as breakfast.

We heated the dolmas and spaggeti on our stove and then enjoyed them together with coffee. Thanks for the breakfast Özlem and also thanks a lot for enabling us to drink coffee in the mornings again.

Having the dinner dolmas for breakfast

In all other gas stations we have visited there is one guy who works with cleaning cars. The car is sprayed with some white foam that I believe is some kind of car shampoo. In Sweden we need to use degreaser to get rid of salt stains from the road and I have for some time wondered if this shampo maybe contains some degreaser.

Car wash. Any degreaser in that shampoo???

Last time I changed chains was in Elhovo in Bulgaria some 800 km ago so now it was time again. Cleaning chains is a dirty job and one good way to find out if the car shampoo had degreaser in it was to try to use it. I put the dirty chains on the ground at the cleaning station and let the guy spray them.

Trying new method to clean chains

The chains moved around as frightened snakes when the guy sprayed them with his high pressure water hose and we had to stand on one end each to prevent them from moving around. The guy was wearing rubber boots while I had shoes on that got wet.
For your information I can now tell that the shampoo contains absolutely no degreaser. Our chains are still covered by the mix of oil and dust we wanted to get rid of and I need to find some degreaser or diesel to wash them in instead.

We bought a loaf of bread in a town and put it on my rear rack to eat with the fried meat at some beautiful place when we got hungry. As usual we got hungry at a gas staion…. When we rolled in to a little station the single man working there pointed where the toilets were and when we came back he asked:

”chai?” (tea)

We sat down in an empty room that had been a shop but now was used as staff room. The man immediately heated tea and we could enjoy our lunch sandwiches with hot tea.

The afternoon was hot, but it had one very pleasant thing – a strong tailwind. This wind was very much appreciated since we were slowly climbing up to higher altitudes but most of all we enjoyed it in the tunnels.

Tunnel number X of 16. This one was short.

Between the town of Yenice and the city of Karabük, there is a section with tunnels. The man at the gas station had informed us that there would be 15 of them. We have mixed feelings for tunnels. They are difficult to cycle in if there is a lot of traffic, but if they weren’t where they are we would be going up and down the hills like yo-yos while we now can ride straight trough.

Bring a Sunday afternoon it was very little traffic on the road so it was easy to pass them. The wind that gets compressed and can be strong in a tunnel was on our way and we passed most of them in a high speed.

We wanted to know how many tunnels there were and Wej counted them while I added their total length from the signs in front of each of them. The longest was 750 meters and the shortest only 39.

Number of tunnels: 16
Total distance: 4081 m.

When arriving in the city of Karabük Wej suddenly remembered that Özlem had adviced us to visit the nearby town of Safranbulo which has a historical center with old wooden houses that is declared as a world heritage by UNESCO. We had forgot about this and hadn’t checked any information about it, but we turned left to go there anyway. Had we known what kind of uphill it was to Safranbulo, we would definately had skipped visiting the town and continued along the planned route… 😉

Since it was late in the afternoon and plenty of guesthouses we decided to change the plan from camping to indoor sleeping instead. We found a guesthouse, negotiated the price and then put our stuff in our room and took our bikes and rolled down the steep slope to the historical city center where we looked around and sat down to have a coffee and beer at a little cafe.

I wonder if moslems have the same feeling for old wooden minarets as we have for old wooden churches?

Old house in Safranbulo. I guess this house was built before plummets (lod) were invented.

Old town houses

New town of Safranbulo seen from the road back from old town.