This little piggy…

From Kutaisi, we will spend a week heading for the Caucasus mountains and a high mountain pass.

To begin with we skirt the foothills, bumping up and down between rivers. It's hard work and not especially rewarding. Particularly as Day one is just plain wet with a puncture thrown in for good measure. Day 2 at least is sunny and we start to get views of the higher mountains that had been completely obscured the day before.

The roads are largely fenced with iron railings and fancy russio-georgian gates. Between the road and the fencing is a modestly generous verge. The verge is grazed by a wide variety of animals - which also wander the roads. Its a bit like being in a child’s story book. The cows moo, the horses neigh, the dogs bark and chase. And then there are the pigs and piglets, the chickens, the goats and the ducks. Plus offside noises from the frogs and Turkeys. 🦃 🐎 🐄 🐕 🐖 🐓 🐐 🦆.

As we finish our lunch a family of pigs come by to graze and have a cooling dip. Then it’s more up down up down until we arrive at the last town before we start to head up the long valley we will be climbing for the next 2 days. One last sustained climb brings us to a hugely deep but very narrow dam where we pitch for the night.Read more