Guide
Zorkun Yaylası, south-east of Osmaniye, is one of the three oldest highland pastures of the Çukurova, together with Namrun in Mersin and Tekir in Adana.
The pasture spreads over a very wide base and is set among pines. Beside the part-timber highland houses there are villas and other houses built in a range of architectural manners. It is much used, and there are grocers, country coffee houses and restaurants, a butcher, a greengrocer, a bakery, internet cafés and pharmacies, with a mobile health post working in the summer months. What it lacks for visitors is a hotel: the nearest is at Karıncalı Yaylası, a smaller pasture fifteen minutes away, and it is of low capacity. In the pasture season the population of Zorkun and the pastures near it reaches around 200,000.
Two other pastures lie on the way up. Ürün Yaylası, at the twelfth kilometre, is easy to reach. Olukbaşı Yaylası, at the sixteenth, is set among pines with highland houses of concrete below and timber above; it is also used as a summer resort, and Osmaniye can be seen from it.
Getting there
The pasture is reached by twenty-six kilometres of two-lane asphalt road, completed in 2008. Minibuses and taxis carry passengers between the centre of Osmaniye and Zorkun.
