So it turns out the grass IS actually greener on the other side. In our case ‘the other side’ was the geographical European continent.

By entering Georgia in the North East and crossing the Northern Caucasus mountains we crossed from the geographical Asian continent, into the European one. Unlike any country border crossing there were no fences or signposts to let us know that we were now riding on our home side of the continental divide. But we could tell. Almost instantly, and quite literally, the grass was greener, so much lusher due to the increase in rainfall on the exposed side of the mountain range. The geography all felt more familiar, we recognised the trees, the spring flowers, the seasonal plants – they were all just like home. Realising we were back on the same landmass as home felt kind of monumental and also totally insignificant all at the same time – we had at least made it back to the continent we set off from and that is definitely an achievement, but at the same time we still have such a long way to go. Yes, some things are starting to feel much more familiar – many of our grassy field camp spots, with bleating lambs in the distance and thick, springy, patches of clover looked and felt like they could have been just around the corner from our home. And yet, there is still so much that is unknown, new to us or culturally very different.

Georgia is a country that definitely wears it’s history like a map on its face. There are castles and watch towers and rocky outcrops fashioned into forts and monuments and statues all over the place. We stumbled upon so many whilst riding along. Just randomly noticing another fortified building in the stonework on a hillside became a frequent occurrence. The ones that truly captivated me were never the ones hyped-up into a tourist attraction, but the kind that were just left, abandoned, as they were, nature slowly reclaiming them, allowing my mind to conjure up Rapunzel-esk characters and stories of those who once lived there. But the one tourist attraction we did swing by were the caves and monastery at Vardzia. Of course, our Yorkshire-man’s budget meant we didn’t pay the extortionate fee to go inside, but we appreciated it from the outside nonetheless. It was amazing to see a whole town of caves carved into the cliff face of a gorge. In fact, the whole river valley of Vardzia was a fortified crumbly history lesson. Every hilly outcrop offered another ruin, every bend in the river gave us glimpses of steps cut into stone boulders, every cliff top had the remains of a wall built on top.

It was fun to try and spot them all, and easy to see why Georgia has had such a turbulent history – It’s the country where East meets West and North meets South.

So many of the sweeping grassy landscapes looked like scenes from a movie set and it didn’t take much to imagine an army marching over them, swords in hand, sheilded armour glinting in the sun – maybe some of them riding a dragon? Or am I taking it too far now!?! The reality is though, that it’s not really history. It’s still being lived. The bow and arrows may be in the past, but Georgia continues to be shaped by so called ‘no-go’ zones. It took us a while to navigate around the former autonomous district of South Ossetia, which is now occupied by Russian military, but is internationally largely recognised as still part of Georgia. It’s complicated and messy. When planning our route we were suprised by how much of a chunk of the country this area covers. And its right in the middle too. It meant our route became a bit of a wiggle, and involved a few busy road sections we weren’t keen on, but we didn’t really have much choice and in the end they were better than we anticipated.

But its not a landscape for the faint hearted.  There are endless rolling hills, steep sided mountains, rocky outcrops and deep river gorges. We covered some of our biggest ever days of climbing in Georgia, with one 1000m climb after another being the usual profile for a days ride. It made for some beautiful scenery, but also some very tired legs and exhausting fatigue.

At this stage in the trip the fatigue has been hitting us (mainly me!) hard, and has lead to some pretty monumental arguments between us. Imagine being in the most pristine, perfect camp spot and spending a good two hours arguing whilst packing away the tent, over nothing very important other than exactly how things are packed and folded. It feels ridiculous to write it and it’s generally all forgotten about after a few minutes of riding, but it’s exhausting to go through such an emotional rollercoaster before the day of cycling has even begun.

Once the moment has passed we can always see that most people struggle to spend 24 hours a day with their spouse for even one single week of holiday, so the fact that we are 20 months into this trip and still talking to one another at all is pretty miraculous. Talking to loved ones back home helps, and gives us some time with other people, but the WiFi and rest days have been lacking recently, so even this was difficult and meant we were very much adding to the breaches of the peace in Georgia. Even a rest day, that unexpectedly turned into two after waking on the second morning to a blanket of snow, felt like the equivalent of caging a chicken and a cat together and just watching the squabbling, hen-pecking and winding up commence – I’ll let you decide who’s who in this scenario!

Having already spent two weeks in Georgia on a bikepacking holiday a few years ago, we already knew we loved the country, and this very much remains the case. Any negative experience we had there was very much of our own making. Plus, you can’t get annoyed at a place that serves the most delicious hot bread on every village corner – the  bread, both metaphorically and physically, puts a smile on your face and hands down is the tastiest bread we’ve ever eaten (but, shhhh, don’t tell the French!).

So after a week of crossing the country, breathing in the beautiful Caucasus Mountain views, enjoying the peaceful camping spots and disturbing them with our marital wars, we made sure we loaded up the bikes with Georgian bread and set off to yet another border crossing – this time one that felt even closer to home – Turkey.