40°N 29°E Topuk - Bursa

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1.9 km (1.2 miles) N of Topuk, BURSA

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Souht

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Ynt: 40°N 29°E Topuk - Bursa

Being a native of Bursa, I was surprised that we had not already attempted the Confluence nearest Mübeccel's hometown. However, as a fellow confluence hunter had deleted this point from his plans, we decided to take advantage of a Turkish holiday and set out from Ankara on the Wednesday evening for an overnight stop close to Bursa before attempting the point on the Thursday. As the journey was taking a bit longer that expected, we decided to stop in İnegöl; unfortunately the hotels had other ideas. This area is fairly conservative and we were turned away from a total of three hotels because we could not produce a marriage certificate. After wasting a lot of time hunting for a place to stay, we decided to head for one of the larger hotels in Bursa where this is not a requirement.

We read the report from the attempt made last year and decided to take their advice and headed south for Osmaniye where we planned to drive to approximately 40N and then look for a route eastwards to the Confluence. Unfortunately, after trying a number of false trails, we still had a few kms to go through fairly dense forest and hence decided to continue on to Topuk, which was listed as being only 1.9 km from the point. The road signs in this area are not very plentiful and we were very grateful to a resident of Osmaniye who put us on the right track and saved us a lot of time.

We eventually reached Topuk and headed north in an attempt to drive as far as we could before setting out on what we thought would be a fairly steep climb. We managed to get to 39°59.616'N 28°59.988'E where we left the car and prepared ourselves to follow the electricity cables up the hill. The climb was not easy for us with loose rock underfoot making it difficult at times to get a good foothold. We seemed to go in a very circuitous route and had to stop on a few occasions to have a rest / drink before finally getting to the point (Elevation 3622 ft/1104 m), 1.5 hours later at 13:30.

The scenery towards the South and West was very impressive although slightly spoiled by the hazy conditions.

Upon checking the compass, we decided to slightly change our return direction but still prepared ourselves for a fairly difficult descent. After a few minutes we came across a disused building that seemed to be a small factory although we could not determine what was produced there. However, we did realise that a factory meant there was probably a track suitable for vehicles from here to the village below. To our delight we managed to find such a track and enjoyed a very pleasant 20/30-minute walk back to the car. If only we had found this earlier... although having to work to get to the point made it all the more rewarding (and exhausting).

Nye Morgan - Mübeccel Orsel
19-May-2005