Below is a "Turkish Tale" I posted almost exactly 12 years ago and refers back to Saklikent 1997. It was our first time in Turkey and we were very naive. Today I know that what we did is rather silly - see the warning after the tale.
Saklikent Gorge
On our first visit to Çaliş Hilary and I went with our two daughters. The younger one had her fifteenth birthday when we were there and the manager of the hotel restaurant (Hulki at the Bambu) took us all out in his car on his day off. We went to Saklikent and the five of us set off up the gorge. First we waded through the freezing water at the bottom of the gorge, and then walked up the easier river bed for some way. After half an hour or so the numbers of people began to thin out, and the river bed got more difficult, but still we went on following our guide. At one point we had to climb a ten foot boulder with cold water running over it. Once we were over this obstacle I asked, "How much further does this gorge go?". Hulki said, "I have no idea. I have never gone this far before!". I think we had all been driven by national pride; neither Brit nor Turk wanting to show weakness by quitting. Now we agreed to turn back and quickly slipped and slid over the rocks back to the bottom and went to dry out at one of the platform restaurants built over the river at the mouth of the gorge. Then we spent some time eating trout and drinking Efes/coke and watching the energetic folk doing white-water rafting. A great day.
WARNING. If there is a sudden thunderstorm in the mountains you probably won't hear it and it could well cause a flash flood through the gorge. If you are deep into the gorge, as we were, your chances of getting out may be rather small. None of us knew that then.
