Good morning it's 6 o'clock we're up bright and early,
in fact it's still dark outside,
because today we have a very long drive to Istanbul.
Yeah it's going to be a long drive but ultimately we could break it up but sometimes you just need to crack on and get the job done!
The sun's just coming up.
Good morning
Are you wearing Chesca trousers?
That is slightly weird! I'm amazed they fit Ben.
Thank you, have a safe trip.
Thank you, You have a absolutely trip it's been amazing have a safe trip
thank you - man hug!
I hope you have a fantastic time back home.
we'll see you somewhere!
bye bye
So it's been absolutely amazing hanging out with those guys,
it's been so much fun, we're so pleased that we finally met up in person.
And they're going to continue exploring the East of Turkey
We've got a drive time of 14 hours 26 minutes back to Istanbul
quite a drive, but before we do it it's going to quickly stock up with water.
There we go.
Beautiful time in the morning the sun is just peeking up over the town now,
if you do make it to the East of Turkey i would definitely recommend visiting Halfeti.
So all the way in this region on both sides of the road,
are lots of trees and they are actually pistachio trees,
because this region is Turkey's pistachio region.
So if you like nuts this is the place to be!
The coffee set in there, or if you want to marry one .....!
We've been driving for about an hour an hour and a half it's starting to look a little bit grey.
How we doing driver? We're doing fine, i think Turkey is going to cry if we ever leave!
It actually feels really strange to think that this is the last long
road trip that we're doing in Turkey on this trip, on this adventure.
So we've just stopped off and put some fuel in, we're just going to stretch the legs.
We've got to be careful not to put too much fuel in,
because when we put her on a ship she has to have less than a quarter of a tank,
so we're just going to put in a few hundred TL at a time, and pace ourselves,
but i think we should have another coffee love, what you reckon? I'm already on it baby!
Okay it's nearly five o'clock the weather's changed !
Just getting us ready for when we're home in the UK in the winter!
We're just literally driving past Ankara,
yeah we made good time today and we're going to start looking for somewhere to park up for the night,
and then do another dash to Istanbul tomorrow morning.
Okay it's 6.30 again, we didn't do the washing up love, no I'll do that now
oh no do it when we get there, ok.
We slept like absolute babies after that drive yesterday, we didn't hear a thing last night did you hear anything?
No, It's very dark! There you go, i can see you now!
Good morning! Yes we ended up stopping at a truck stop,
if you ever need a service stop they're called 'Servis Alani'
and they'll have a sign of a mechanic, a petrol station, food and parking.
Or you have 'Parki Alani which is just food and a truck stop.
They're very very handy on the motorway and unlike the UK they're free!
We're just making a coffee for the road!
You can tell the weather is changing here in Turkey,
before we go North i've opened all the blinds at the front and within minutes everything's condensation,
look i've literally just wiped it!
Yeah and you can see we're surrounded by trucks, we're in a truck stop!
We literally are! Are we blocked in? Oh no there's a gap over there!
We'll just have to do a bit of a slalom, i'm a professional driver - you are Marianne!
So the flight time today is about 3.5 - 4 hours,
and then we should be in Istanbul, all ready to get Trudy ready for shipping.
Right quick manoeuvre between the lorries.
Truck stop Trudy style!
They all protected her!
They all boxed us in to keep us safe! That's so sweet.
I got a feeling that it should be that way? Let's see whether it's blocked in ...
and we hit the open road !
And the moon ...... I love this time in the morning,
everybody's just waking up, the sun's thinking about coming up.
You can tell we're coming north, yesterday i was in my shorts
and now there's ice or snow on the side of the road on those rocks there.
We are 1,500 meters high which probably has something to do with it.
So we're just coming into the outskirts of Istanbul, you can see all the ships out there,
Trudy will be on one of those soon.
But how nice is it that the blue sky has just come out to welcome us back!
Home sweet home Maltepe car park,
that's it you may recognise this, probably from a year or so ago.
We're back on the Asian side of Istanbul parked in this huge car park actually,
this track here was all being constructed last time we were here,
so they finished it, which means no more building noise in the morning!
And we're just down the road from Ersel the man, the myth, the legend!
Exactly, so we're meeting up with Ersel tomorrow to sort out all Trudys engineering bits,
before we leave Turkey.
So we're going to leave you there and we will see you in the morning!
Good morning we have woken up here in Istanbul,
the sun is going to shine today, Trudy is having a bit of last Turkish love before we leave.
We're just waiting for Ersel, he's going to take us to a garage where we're going to get her
a full service.
Okay Ersel has just rocked up, i'll try not to follow the wrong car this morning!
Last time we followed Ersel to a garage a year ago, we followed the wrong Audi!
So don't do that again today !
this is when i start singing good morning, good morning!
We've arrived, looks like they specialise in vans!
Okay she even got new wipers!
So this is where we got the van done, Ozlem Otomotiv - here in Istanbul.
So that was absolutely perfect, we've got Trudy fully serviced, a great garage,
if you're ever in Istanbul need to repair your van it's a great place.
Now we're going to try and see if we can find Trudy some new hubcaps because we kind of killed hers and lost one in Georgia!
We're following the right Audi
there you go, we got some new hubcaps with fiat
Do you like?
We're not sponsored by FIAT - but if you'd like to call me HA HA
Marianne is like a kid in a candy store
she's found the display of horns!
Is Trudy going to get a new horn?
I think she should!
What is that?
oh these are nice they've given us some stickers.
A memory of Turkey, there you go and a 4x4 - we were telling them the story that
Trudy thinks she's a 4x4, even though she's only a 4x2 - that's your driving love.
so we've met up with Tolga for lunch and you may recognise this man
as the man that made Chris eat kokoreç
kokoreç is sheep's intestines we're going to have sheep's intestines for lunch!
How are you? it's a good thing it's a good thing the video did great!
Okay it's not very Turkish but oh my lord look at the size of that burger !
We're catching up having a quick bite to eat enjoying our last few days in Istanbul,
before the adventure continues - and as Ersel says the dream must go on! Right? Yes the dream!
Thank you, lovely to see you looking forward to seeing you again here in Istanbul.
Yeah call me when you are coming!
Just in case anyone was wondering, i don't do all the driving in Turkey, but when we're on filming days,
I do drive! Yeah i have to drive during filming days,
but on long drives and drives where we're not filming Chris is happy to take the reigns.
So this morning we have come for another Turkish breakfast, you may recognise this place
from a previous video, we couldn't leave Turkey without having one big final Turkish breakfast
- with Elif and Ersel
Wow after a fantastic breakfast, and how nice was it to see the owner Victoria came down to see us
it was lovely to catch up,
We've come back to Trudy because we need to pack her up get our backpacks packed,
ready because it all goes according to plan she should be being dropped off at the shipping port bright and early tomorrow morning.
Let's see whether they'll let us leave tomorrow!
So we've got a bit of we got a bit of packing to do,
but we are almost there,
and it's funny because we've actually had to take and pack all the summer clothes,
and now we're all wrapped up in winter clothes aren't we?
It's so cold up here and raining.
So that was our last sleep in Trudy,
yeah today she is being dropped off at the shipping port.
We're just doing the last little bit of packing
and one of the things is your LPG gas tank has to be empty,
so we have every gas ring on, the fridge on and open,
and the heating on to try and use the last bit.
It's showing that it's only on one bar,
we've got an hour till Ersel comes to pick us up so should be good.
And just packing the last few bits away getting the backpacks ready and then we'll be off.
We're just packing the last few bits i put some paper in the freezer compartment because there's still a little bit of moisture in there
and on the trays,
but emptying the cupboard we saw this!
This brings back crazy, strange and fond memories!
95 days in the first isolation,
how crazy is that?
This was our little isolation in Dalyan but we were with Levent so it wasn't really isolation with Levent,
we were just hanging out with our friends!
Yeah gas is still on we're just trying to get the last bit of gas out,
we were told different things - certificate no certificate! You have to have emptied, you don't have to have it emptied -
but basically they said get it as low as you can and we don't need a certificate!
But that differs on depending which shipping company you're going with so check first!
Okay 06.45 we've met up with Ersel and we're heading to the shipping port.
One thing we're not going to miss is Istanbul traffic, and even this time in the morning like all cities it's a nightmare!
Okay the sun has come up and you can see all the shipping boats,
all the way along the coast here we've still got about half an hour's drive just to the end of this stretch of water here,
Trudy may be going on one of those boats!
I know it's hard to think that Trudy's going to be going on one of those ships.
Okay so we're just arriving down in the shipping port.
The first stop is to go to customs to make sure that they check in the vehicle,
but also they update our record so that when we go to the airport we have permission to leave the country without the vehicle,
otherwise things get really complicated!
We're also going to be able to check to see whether there are any driving fines, speeding tickets Marianne!?
Fines for the toll roads that we didn't get sorted at the time,
it should be all right,
I think we should be good as they would have checked all that when we went to Georgia recently,
so and that was that was all good so it's only the last couple of months.
Oh interesting all the barriers - we'll have to park up here,
okay so we should be i think at customs.
So we'll leave the camera and we'll update you in a minute or in an hour, once we have some news.
Okay all of the customs checks have been done, the paperwork's all been completed.
Thank god we have Mr Ersel because without Ersel it would have been a little bit complicated!
Thank you Ersel,
so now we're just going to wait, we're going to give the keys over to one of the guys from the port,
Marianne's just doing a final check on the van to make sure that we haven't forgotten anything,
and then we'll leave Trudy and i will be reunited with her in about three weeks time.
That is it, Marianne's just driving Trudy into the port!
Okay it's all done, Trudy has officially left Turkey she's in the port.
It was a bit of a complicated process, like i said thank god we have Mr Ersel
but yeah make sure you have all your documents, your car documents, even your insurance
and take cash because the boat has been delayed for a few days and we had to pay some extra parking costs
to the shipping company to look after Trudy for that extra time,
and they don't take credit card, so a good tip is always make sure you have enough cash, luckily Ersel did!
Guys you're still here! That's it the road trip's over it's finished!
You can leave now, seriously you don't want to be late to Istanbul!