Day 24 - Tbilisi off to the Mtns

We must have got barely 5 mins sleep son our train journey (complete with sleepers) to Tbilisi from Yerevan. We’d been stopped at least 3 times to allow relevant Armenian annd Georgian officials on Board our train that surely had square wheels ! In fact at one point Kev issued an ultimatum saying that he would rather end up in gaol than get out of bed one more time to show his bloody passport and credentials !

Our 10 hour."clicketty clackettty" journey finally deposited us in downtown Tbilisi where we jumped into a taxi to head to the airport to pick up our hire car

Our Journey out of Tbilisi took us on the stunning Georgian Military road, the 18th century construction was designed to facilitate troop movement and trade into and out of Russia. In recent times its image was flashed around the world when potential Russian conscripts evacuated en mass from Russia into Georgia at the Georgian end of the Military road in the Darial pass region.

The journey was stunning as the road climbed into the Mtns and over the Javari Pass at 2,400 metres. It also became a white knuckle experience as we peered nervously over the road 

edge in misty conditions into the abyss !We negotiated roads passing hundreds of Russian bound trucks on roads with no overtaking room and through a tunnle that had some of the biggest sinkholes we'd ever driven through !

We finally emerged on the stunning snow capped mountain side of the Kazbegi region and finished up in the breathtaking town of Stepantsminda with its Holy Trinity church perched high above the town only 10kms from the Russian border Wow this was so beautiful ! 

It was back to a slightly chilly 2c but even Henry couldn't resist getting out and about as we searched our basic town for some sustenance after the days pretty testing drive !




Sent from my iPad

View from our room at Sepantsmindawq

The Truck “Jam” starts !

The long train journey starts