Almost at the start line!

Hey everyone 👋

Ben and I are set to start our multi-week hike in Armenia tomorrow (Tuesday arvo for all you kiwis!). We’re hiking the Armenia section of the Transcaucasian Trail (TCT), which is a long-distance hike stretching across the South Caucasus. The Armenia section is roughly 800km, linking together remote mountain ranges, ancient villages, and historic sites. It’s a pretty rugged, partly still-in-progress trail, so we’ll be navigating a mix of marked paths, dirt (mud) roads, and some “figure it out as you go” sections (aka bush bashing) 😅 Along the way we’ll be hiking through huge alpine landscapes, forested valleys, and rolling highlands, passing centuries-old monasteries, khachkars (intricately carved stone crosses), and tiny villages where life hasn’t changed much in generations. Armenia is one of the oldest Christian countries in the world, so there’s a LOT of history woven into the landscape - basically an epic combo of big nature + ancient ruins 🤓 GEEK WORLD!!!

Because of all that, we’ve been planning this hike for months, and we’re finally (almost!) at the start line. Organising it has been an immense task - connecting trail sections, figuring out potential camping spots, noting guesthouses or B&Bs for when we might need a break from tent life (hot showers are *never* overrated!!!), working out where supermarkets are, and how much food and water we’ll need to carry between them. On top of that, there’s been all the gear prep and trying to anticipate navigational challenges… this has definitely kept me busy for a long time 😅🐝🐝🐝

We’re sure the first few days will quickly highlight what we’ve missed and/or what we’ve over-prepared for. Ben’s very much a “she’ll be right” kind of human, whereas I am more of a “prepare before we get there” type - so as per usual we’ve compromised and we’re taking everything we could ever possibly need to survive 😜✅ We’ve got things like bear spray, DEET, dog whistles, survival whistles, water UV filter, compass, knife, PLB - I’ve even soaked our clothes in permethrin… the list goes on. A big part of my anxiety in this area has been not knowing what we’d be able to source once we’re in Armenia. There are only a couple of outdoor stores here and they’re not big! Plus most things are in Armenian. But I think we’ve managed to cover the essentials for surviving the Armenian wilds 🫡

That said, we have had to make a few changes to the original plan. Unfortunately, we’ve cut the southern section of the trail due to what’s happening in Iran, so we won’t be going south of Tatev. Instead, we’ll head to Goris via Khot rather than continuing on to Kapan and Meghri. It’s been a really disappointing call to make, especially because that region is meant to be an incredible mix of dramatic landscapes and ancient history - some of the earliest churches and monasteries, plus local art trails and all sorts of cool stuff. So yeah… a massive 🖕 to the Amerikkkan Dicktator from us! Obviously our hike being affected is nothing compared to what others are facing, but it just highlights how their evil and psychopathic greed permeates into so many people’s everyday lives - that’s all I’ll say here 🫡

On top of that, we’ve also decided to skip the Gegham Mountains for now. As much as we’d love to do them, it’s still early in the season and the alpine/snow conditions are beyond our experience level. We’re trying to be as sensible and safe as possible, so we’ll come back and tackle that section when it’s warmer. Same goes for the southern sections - we’re hoping we can return and complete them when things are safer.

If you’re reading this then you’ve found findpenguins okay. Not sure how often we’ll be able to post, but we’re aiming for at least a couple of updates a week, hopefully more - signal and energy levels permitting 😅

We’re soooooo excited to get going!! For now we’re in Yeghegnadzor having just enjoyed a few days exploring Yerevan. Tomorrow we’ll hitch a ride up to the monastery just out of Shatin - this is where our hike officially begins! The weather’s looking pretty decent this week (a bit chilly…snowing ☃️ for the next couple of days!), with the weekend looking questionable 🌧️ - we’ll see how we get on! It does look like it’ll warm up a bit next week, which will be ideal (most particularly for me lol 🥶).

The rough plan at this stage is:
Section one (Shatin to Goris): 18-21 days.
Section two (Lake Arpi to Sevan): 19–22 days

Churrrrrrrrr! Catch you on the flip side 🫡

Attached is a fly-over of part one of our thru-hike!! It is quite long as I couldn’t figure out how to speed it up (wow I feel old typing that 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Ben would’ve done it in half a second).

Ben & Sam 🩵Read more