Guide
Ballıkayalar is a valley about two kilometres long, with walls rising between forty and eighty metres, six and a half kilometres north of the Gulf of İzmit. The Ballıkaya stream cut it, and the water has made waterfalls and the deep round basins called giant's kettles. The name comes from the use of the high hollows in the rock as beehives in the past: the place was called the Honey Caves, the Caves of Honey and the Honey Rocks before it settled as Ballıkayalar.
The canyon was cut by rivers working middle Triassic limestone over two hundred million years. The canyon valley, the waterfall, the giant's kettles, the caves and hollows and the vegetation are what the park is valued for. Its highest points are Topluca Tepe at 280 metres and Düzmeşe Tepe at 224, and it covers 6,029.73 decares. The natural vegetation is scrub, coppiced oak, pseudo-maquis and maquis.
This is where rock climbing began in Türkiye. The first routes were opened in the 1970s, and climbers come here for its nearness to İstanbul. Because the valley runs north to south, some of the rock stays in shade at different hours of the day, so that climbing is comfortable even in hot weather.
Besides climbers, Ballıkayalar draws picnickers, and there is a freshwater pool suitable for swimming where people also jump from the rocks.
- Designated
- 6.09.1995
Entry fee
- Marmara group 3 · category 1 · Per person
- 65 ₺
