River Blazer

The Goksü River: Kayaking in Central Turkey

River Blazer — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 12:17:10 GMT

Turkey

Reaching the Goksü

There are two potential starting points for a journey down the Goksü River. Both are easily accessible by car or even public transit.

A few sources I found online hinted that the Goksü is navigable from as high up as Bıçakçı Bridge, about 45km upstream. Based on my Google Earth research, this section looked incredibly beautiful and very tempting to paddle, but due to the lack of information I could find about the two steep, scary-looking canyons, I decided to play it safe and skip this section.

As a solo packrafter, I have a strict rule when scouting and researching rivers. If a section of a river appears to be steep and difficult or impossible to portage, I skip it. The only exception is if I can find solid sources indicating that the section is easily navigable, and at or below my skill level. And for this river, there were zero trip reports.

This self-enforced rule has quite possibly saved my life on numerous expeditions, including my previous visit to Turkey. So despite occasional regrets of missing an opportunity like this, I will continue to play by it, and strongly advise that anyone else considering an off-the-beaten-path solo expedition does the same.

So I decided to begin my trip at a lower starting point, the village of Derinçay.

Karaman, the nearest big city about 80km to the north, can be easily reached by bus or train from Ankara, Istanbul, Antalya, or just about anywhere in Turkey. From Karaman's bus terminal (otogar), catch one of the many minibuses (dolmuş) heading south to Mut. The dolmuş will get you as close as the nearby village of Burunköy (ask the driver to stop and he'll let you off anywhere), which is about a 7km walk through winding, hilly, farm roads to the riverbed at Derinçay.

Or if you're more ballsy than I was and want to start from the upper section, catch a dolmuş to Ermenek which will take you right over Bıçakçı Bridge.

As it always seems to be in Turkey, traveling by local minibus was a bit of an adventure. If you're on a time crunch or hate waiting, rent a car and drive. But if you want to experience Turkish life in it's true form, travel like the locals do.

After dodging the swarm of touts trying to sell me bus tickets at the main station, I found the sole minibus headed for Mut parked outside. The driver quickly ushered me onboard and told me the bus would be leaving in 5 minutes.

5 Turkish minutes quickly turned into more, as the driver stood outside his bus seemingly desperate to fill up more seats before embarking. After what seemed like over an hour of waiting for what turned out to be zero extra passengers, the driver got in his seat and started driving. Sure enough, just 5 minutes later he stopped at a curbside bus stop in the city center, where a few passengers got on and started chatting away with the driver in rapid-fire Turkish. Seemingly not satisfied with the number of passengers gathered so far, we waited another half an hour before finally driving towards Mut.

The driver gave me a friendly goodbye as I got off in the small village of Burunköy and started my walk into the Turkish countryside.

Hiking into the Goksü: Derinçay & the upper Goksü valley

The hike involved a bit of rock scrambling and bushwacking to reach the riverbed, but what's a good packrafting trip without a hike in?

This region of Turkey is completely off the tourist trail, so don't expect any marked or maintained hiking trails. Fortunately, the area is heavily utilized for agriculture, so there is no shortage of farm roads and sheep trails and most of these trails can be followed via Google Earth or Maps.me.

The Journey

Section 1: Derinçay to Hamamköy (18km)

At its upper section, the Goksü has a high-valley feel, as it makes a winding path through a wide-open valley. Small rolling hills scatter the riverbank, and the round peaks of the Taurus Mountains tower in the distance.

At its narrowest and shallowest stretches coming out of Derinçay, the sun illuminates the beautiful waters of the turquoise river. As a paddler, you feel as if your paddle is dipping into some sort of witch's potion.

The gem-like water of the Goksü River

Although the river has a steady current, there are few rapids in this section. At the first bridge, there is a small weir (<1m drop), but this is easily navigable without any issues.

Section 2: Hamamköy - Kislakoy (37km)

Soon after Hamamköy, the river meets a right tributary and almost doubles in volume. The Goksü is no longer a small mountain stream, but is now a large-volume river, up to 200m wide at times and deeper than my paddle could reach even at its shallowest sections.

The river maintains a strong current with scattered sections of Class I rapids, making the bulk of this section a very relaxing paddle. It's one of those rivers where you can basically sit back, take a nap, and let the river take you where you need to go.

As the river meanders through the wide valley of orchards, vineyards, and small farming villages, I pass the occasional farmer or shepherd; each equally baffled as to what a lone foreigner is doing with a kayak all the way up here.

The Goksü in its widest sections

The mountains of the upper section move further into the distance, as the immediate surroundings move into a mixture between tabletop rolling hills, gravel embankments, and flat meadows. Towards the end of the section, the mountains in the distance begin coming closer and closer. Let's just call this a preview of the next section to come...

Section 3: Kislakoy - Karakaya (26km)

The mountains continue to draw nearer and nearer, and the river becomes faster and faster, with bigger and more frequent rapids. About 6km in, the river enters a narrow, steep canyon - probably the most difficult section of the journey.

The canyon's rocky outcrops and massive boulders - some upwards of 20m in diameter - leave the river without much room. At times, the river (which only a few hundred meters upstream was a 200m-wide valley river) gets sucked through tiny gaps between boulders. And this much water doesn't particularly like doing this..

The eddies and currents were more powerful than anything I'd ever paddled before; yanking and tugging my kayak in every way imaginable. It was like a rip current suddenly decided that it was going to pull you in, out, and sideways all at the same time. Even with my sturdy packraft and thigh straps to help me balance, I felt as if the river was just trying to suck me in. Admittedly, it was in this section that I debated giving up on the trip and hiking out of the canyon.

Battling for my life on a river with a mind of its own

Luck be with me, after about a kilometer or two of battling eddies from hell, the canyon widened into a spectacular gorge, with some high-volume Class I-II rapids to keep it entertaining. Exhausted from the first half of the section, I spent the night camping in the gorge right above the village of Kargiçak.

A late evening paddle through the gorge into Kargiçak

Right below Kargiçak, there are a series of two Class II-III rapids. Both can be easily avoided by running river left and river right respectively. I personally decided to avoid the first but run the second, though a more daring kayaker could have easily run both.

The canyon continues to get wider and deeper as the river flows further into the depth of the mountains. Rapids become less frequent, and the river returns to its previous state of being a wide and largely calm river. As the river twists its way through the canyon, it moves back and forth against the canyon walls. At times the walls are near vertical and rocky, giving it a real "canyon" feel, while at other times they are heavily forested with vegetation. Which, during late August when I ran the river, was equally spectacular with all the colors.

Navigating the Goksü River Gorge and its steep, rocky walls

Section 4: Karakaya - Silifke (19km)

Under the bridge in Karakaya, there is a powerful artificial rapid (Class III-IV), which I decided to make a difficult portage around on river left. A skilled paddler could run it on river right.

A few bends later, the river enters an even wider, rocky canyon. The farmlands of the upper valley that surrounded the river have now become a barren quarry. For about 6km, this is easily the most remote section of the river. You won't see any farms, active roads, sheep, or other signs of civilization. Although mostly flatwater, there is one Class II rapid towards the end of the quarry section.

Alone in the Goksü's most remote section

The canyon soon returns to forests and farmlands as the river approaches the city of Silifke. Due to the backlog of Silifke's hydroelectric dam, the final 15km are almost entirely slow-moving flatwater. Though scenic, it's relatively boring paddling with little current remaining.

At kilometer 12, the river makes a fork around a small river island. Go left along the narrower side, as on river right you'll run into a dangerous Class III-IV rapid with no place to portage or scout (the banks are very overgrown).

The trip can be ended as far up as 8km from Silifke, where two dirt roads begin following the river on each side, each leading to the city. 1km above the center of Silifke is the hydroelectric dam - make sure to end the trip well before this as once you reach the dam there is no convenient spot to exit the river.

Start here for a quick overview of everything you need to know

Ghost — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 23:04:23 GMT

Hey there, welcome to your new home on the web!

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Your guide to Ghost

If you get through all those and you're hungry for more, you can find an extensive library of content for creators over on the Ghost blog.

Getting help

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Have fun!

Customizing your brand and design settings

Ghost — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 23:04:22 GMT

As discussed in the introduction post, one of the best things about Ghost is just how much you can customize to turn your site into something unique. Everything about your layout and design can be changed, so you're not stuck with yet another clone of a social network profile.

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Ghost Admin → Settings → Branding

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Ghost Admin → Settings → Theme

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Casper (default) — Made for all sorts of blogs and newsletters
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Building something custom

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A snippet from a post template

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Writing and managing content in Ghost, an advanced guide

Ghost — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 23:04:21 GMT

Ghost comes with a best-in-class editor which does its very best to get out of the way, and let you focus on your content. Don't let its minimal looks fool you, though, beneath the surface lies a powerful editing toolset designed to accommodate the extensive needs of modern creators.

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The Ghost editor. Also available in dark-mode, for late night writing sessions.

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Using cards

You can insert dynamic cards inside post content using the + button, which appears on new lines, or by typing / on a new line to trigger the card menu. Many of the choices are simple and intuitive, like bookmark cards, which allow you to create rich links with embedded structured data:

Open Subscription Platforms

A shared movement for independent subscription data.

Open Subscription Platforms

or embed cards which make it easy to insert content you want to share with your audience, from external services:

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Peaceful places

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Build workflows with snippets

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Building your audience with subscriber signups

Ghost — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 23:04:20 GMT

What sets Ghost apart from other products is that you can publish content and grow your audience using the same platform. Rather than just endlessly posting and hoping someone is listening, you can track real signups against your work and have them subscribe to be notified of future posts. The feature that makes all this possible is called Portal.

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Because subscribers are automatically able to sign in and out of your site as registered members: You can (optionally) restrict access to posts and pages depending on whether people are signed-in or not. So if you want to publish some posts for free, but keep some really great stuff for members-only, this can be a great draw to encourage people to sign up!

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The floating Portal button is completely optional. If you prefer, you can add manual links to your content, navigation, or theme to trigger it instead.

Like this! Sign up here

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Social networks go in and out of fashion all the time. Email addresses are timeless.

Growing your audience is valuable no matter what type of site you run, but if your content is your business, then you might also be interested in setting up premium subscriptions.

Selling premium memberships with recurring revenue

Ghost — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 23:04:19 GMT

For creators and aspiring entrepreneurs looking to generate a sustainable recurring revenue stream from their creative work, Ghost has built-in payments allowing you to create a subscription commerce business.

Connect your Stripe account to Ghost, and you'll be able to quickly and easily create monthly and yearly premium plans for members to subscribe to, as well as complimentary plans for friends and family.

Ghost takes 0% payment fees, so everything you make is yours to keep!

Using subscriptions, you can build an independent media business like Stratechery, The Information, or The Browser.

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The Browser has over 10,000 paying subscribers

Most successful subscription businesses publish a mix of free and paid posts to attract a new audience, and upsell the most loyal members to a premium offering. You can also mix different access levels within the same post, showing a free preview to logged out members and then, right when you're ready for a cliffhanger, that's a good time to...

How to grow your business around an audience

Ghost — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 23:04:18 GMT

As you grow, you'll probably want to start inviting team members and collaborators to your site. Ghost has a number of different user roles for your team:

Contributors
This is the base user level in Ghost. Contributors can create and edit their own draft posts, but they are unable to edit drafts of others or publish posts. Contributors are untrusted users with the most basic access to your publication.

Authors
Authors are the 2nd user level in Ghost. Authors can write, edit and publish their own posts. Authors are trusted users. If you don't trust users to be allowed to publish their own posts, they should be set as Contributors.

Editors
Editors are the 3rd user level in Ghost. Editors can do everything that an Author can do, but they can also edit and publish the posts of others - as well as their own. Editors can also invite new Contributors & Authors to the site.

Administrators
The top user level in Ghost is Administrator. Again, administrators can do everything that Authors and Editors can do, but they can also edit all site settings and data, not just content. Additionally, administrators have full access to invite, manage or remove any other user of the site.

The Owner
There is only ever one owner of a Ghost site. The owner is a special user which has all the same permissions as an Administrator, but with two exceptions: The Owner can never be deleted. And in some circumstances the owner will have access to additional special settings if applicable. For example: billing details, if using Ghost(Pro).

Ask all of your users to fill out their user profiles, including bio and social links. These will populate rich structured data for posts and generally create more opportunities for themes to fully populate their design.

If you're looking for insights, tips and reference materials to expand your content business, here's 5 top resources to get you started:

How to create a premium newsletter (+ some case studies)
Learn how others run successful paid email newsletter products
The ultimate guide to membership websites for creators
Tips to help you build, launch and grow your new membership business
The Newsletter Guide
A 201 guide for taking your newsletters to the next level
The proven way to find your niche, explained
Find the overlap and find a monetizable niche that gets noticed
Should you launch a referral program?
Strategies for building a sustainable referral growth machine

Setting up apps and custom integrations

Ghost — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 23:04:17 GMT

It's possible to extend your Ghost site and connect it with hundreds of the most popular apps and tools using integrations.

Whether you need to automatically publish new posts on social media, connect your favorite analytics tool, sync your community or embed forms into your content — our integrations library has got it all covered with hundreds of integration tutorials.

Many integrations are as simple as inserting an embed by pasting a link, or copying a snippet of code directly from an app and pasting it into Ghost. Our integration tutorials are used by creators of all kinds to get apps and integrations up and running in no time — no technical knowledge required.

Zapier

Zapier is a no-code tool that allows you to build powerful automations, and our official integration allows you to connect your Ghost site to more than 1,000 external services.

Example: When someone new subscribes to a newsletter on a Ghost site (Trigger) then the contact information is automatically pushed into MailChimp (Action).

Here's a few of the most popular automation templates:

Custom integrations

For more advanced automation, it's possible to create custom Ghost integrations with dedicated API keys from the Integrations page within Ghost Admin.

These custom integrations allow you to use the Ghost API without needing to write code, and create powerful workflows such as sending content from your favorite desktop editor into Ghost as a new draft.