We’d barely had time to unpack before we were spitting into our masks and leaping, flippers flapping, from the bow of a Turkish gulet. No pandering to health and safety here, just a cursory “Mind your feet on the anchor chain”.

The kids were all best mates within minutes. That’s what I love about family adventure holidays: there’s no settling in, you’re just thrown in.

Crusty with salt, we lounged on our kilim-clad deck feeling quite euphoric.

Nostrils horizontal, we absorbed the first smells of this culture change as Apo, our captain, barbecued spicy chicken at the stern. Even better, his wife was preparing beany salads and couscous in the galley - a beer from the icebox and the transition was complete.

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Wendy, my wife, daughters Kiah, 12, and Imogen, 10, and I, along with three other families, had signed up for the eight-day Legends of Lycia tour with the adventure company Explore - a mixed bag of on-the-water-or-in-it activities, with a bit of mountain walking and ruin sightseeing.

At our base, the Lycian fishing port of Kas, the proximity of its guardian mountain range almost forces you into the water or the hills. If we weren’t swimming or snorkelling, we were kayaking or walking.

Day two, and the air con in the minibus disguised the searing heat as we corkscrewed up into the Taurus Mountains, conserving our energy for the three-hour trek. The foothills had been nibbled to death - extreme goat topiary, which eventually blossomed into oak and juniper as we hiked to 6,500ft. On the way up, Kiah and Immie caught grasshoppers and praying man-tises.

“These mountains are also home to wolf, bear, boar, lynx and panther,” said Paul, our expert guide. I was only ready for goats and the odd golden eagle - I hadn’t packed my panther alarm. We scoured the ground for tracks, but all we found was a tortoise - an affable fellow who probably hadn’t planned on being molested by seven excited children.

After all the hot walking, in temperatures of 38C, we were sapped and ravenous. Part of the responsible travel ethos Explore employs is to integrate with the locals, so lunch was at a typical village house. Rukiye, our host, was a Sunni Muslim, and this simple event became an education for the children from the moment they left their shoes at the door. The dining room was sparsely furnished, with just one poster of Mecca on the wall.

Rukiye put on a vast spread of traditional Turkish fare, all laid out on a cloth on the floor - which we weren’t allowed to tread on. “How are you meant to get to the food if you can’t stand on the cloth?” asked Josh, one of the kids. Well, he had a point. The edge of the cloth was a good foot away from any bowl. Despite our hunger, none of us wanted to lean over and risk falling into the food; that would have been terribly impolite.

Paul rescued us with the news that we were allowed to put our feet under the cloth. So 15 of us, feet under cloth, went about demolishing stuffed peppers, chicken and lamb.

Back on the trail, we were treated to one of Paul’s history lessons. Butterflies did figures of eight around the children as they crouched next to the map, watching his stick describe the paths taken by sultans and Roman warriors.

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