Day 51 – 27th May 2014 leave 8.45am Miles rode 173 Yerevan – Tbilisi

I’ll miss Yerevan, it has been a pleasure to have stayed there, everyone has been great and I have made many friends. There aren’t many cities I think ‘it would be good to live here’ but Yerevan is one of them.

As I rode away I had the weather on my side, blue skies a few ‘Simpsons Clouds’ and quiet roads. I had wanted to ride to Batumi, Georgia on the Black Sea to meet Garth who arrived there last night but it was 600km which is just too far with the poor roads. I hadn’t ruled it out completely and headed towards Tbilisi which was sort of en route. I was making great time and only two speeding cameras flashed me! I thought I wasn’t too far from the boarder when I passed through a 1.5km tunnel which had no lights, my front light was dirty so I couldn’t see at all, I waited for a car to come and I followed it. Breaking down wouldn’t have been ideal as there was nowhere to pull over inside the tunnel and no one could see you!

Another few miles and the road split, my sat nav sent me away from the main road towards a mountain again. The road was as bad as any road I’ve ridden, more like a really bad farm track. For the next 25km I didn’t see another car, it was enjoyable ridding but slow. Then I saw the boarder, I think they were asleep as they had to unlock the gate to let me out of Armenia (10 minutes) and then into Georgia. I hadn’t passed any cars on my way to the boarder and had I looked at it from a distance I would have thought it was a dilapidated farm!

The kind Armenian guard was just like the Turkish one a week ago and didn’t charge me for the speeding fines…

Back in Georgia I had another 25km of farm track and I passed two other cars in that time. It was beautiful, it could have been a National Park, maybe I was? The track wound it’s way along side a raging river with trees and meadows either side, it had ‘greened up’, it felt like Norther England at times.

I knew I wouldn’t make Batumi now.

I reached a main road and there was a rural restaurant, there were only a couple of men there and over the next hour no more than a handful of cars passed. They cooked massive pork kebabs outside in the open and served it with a great spicy sauce and bread. One of the best meals in ages. As I ate the heavens opened, so much that the road was like a river outside.

As I had plenty of time now I chilled out and waited for it to stop, when I emerged I heard birds singing for the first time in ages. It reminded me of home, the green and birds singing.

I arrived in Tbilisi and my lovely hostel was at the top of a really steep hill, the Dakar was great.

I spent the evening talking with people from so many different countries.

The picture below is the boarder crossing back into Georgia…