Beautiful scenery: And a run in with the police

March 26, 2014

After witnessing the aftermath of the serious accident the evening before, I felt like Georgia was going to have to work very hard to get back into my good books. Opening the day with a ferocious headwind was not a good way to begin. It was utterly exhausting battling along at six kilometres per hour on the flat and I soon collapsed into a bus shelter to get out of the wind. As there was no bench I slunk to the floor and sat there for a moment, but then a small boy from a shop across the road carried a chair over for me to sit on. A small act of kindness to lift my spirits.

Hit an erratic chicken - minus five points

Hit a silly woman who is walking in the middle of the road but should know better - plus ten points

Beyond the town of Bagdati I switched to an even smaller road that ran between there and Zestafoni. This turned out to be one of my better decisions because the road was absolutely awful. It was riddled with pot holes and went up and down incredibly steeply. As a result there were very few vehicles on it and those that were had to crawl along very slowly. Perfect! And with the wind dying down and the traffic no longer a concern I was finally able to really appreciate the wonderful Georgian scenery. Everything was very green, with the snowy peaks of vast mountain ranges away to either side below bright blue skies and clear rivers and streams flowing down from these hills and mountains. It felt like an idyllic place. I could have been in Switzerland. Well, apart from the bad road, and the litter strewn everywhere, and the shabby houses, and the Ladas, and just about everything else to do with man. But the scenery, the scenery was like being in Switzerland!

Most of the vehicles had to slow down tremendously to weave through the potholes. The Ladas were able to maintain their normal speed

Upon reaching Zestafoni my reverie was broken as I had to join the major highway that runs through Georgia. This was actually nowhere near as bad as it sounds, because it had a fairly consistent shoulder which, although sand and gravel, was okay to cycle on. Most of the time it was like having a lane to myself. Most of the time:

MOO-ve out of the way! HaHaHa! You can use that one if you want

Then I had a choice to make - continue on this main highway over the 1400m pass that separates west and east Georgia, or take another much smaller road through these mountains. The advantage of the first option being that it would likely be easier, and would be fine if the shoulder continued the whole way. I very much suspected that it wouldn't though. As for the smaller road, I had no idea about the quality of it, or if it would even be open. It would likely be very, very difficult either way. So naturally I chose this second option.

Initially I was very glad that I did, as I pulled away from the traffic and onto a completely empty road next to a river in a valley surrounded by mountains. It was staggeringly beautiful. But there were absolutely no vehicles on it whatsoever, and I soon came to a section that was almost impassable, with thick muddy puddles covering the width of the road. I considered turning back but decided to persevere to see if it got better, getting filthy pushing my bike through the mud more in hope than expectation. But fortunately my perseverance paid off, as I came to a bridge and realised that there was a road on the other side of the river that I could have taken that was in much better shape. After the bridge the road was much better and there were a few cars now and I saw that this pass might just be possible after all.

At about 6.30 I reached the small town of Kharagauli and was passing through it when a police car pulled up alongside me. I didn't particularly want to have anything to do with the Georgian police and it crossed my mind that they might be planning to try and extort a little money out of me. How wrong I was. We all stood around waiting for a while until a man turned up who spoke English. He worked in the nearby national park and of course was called George. He asked me where I was going and I told him Khashuri, which was the town on the other side of the pass. "It is too far" he said, "It is 45 or 50 kilometres. You must stay here tonight. The police say you must camp in the park outside their station."

I really didn't want to do this as it would be noisy in the town and I would much rather get another hour or so of cycling done and camp somewhere quiet. I told George I would prefer to cycle another ten kilometres and then find somewhere to camp.

"No," he said, "in ten kilometres there are just woods."

'Sounds like a terrible place to camp' I thought.

"It is dangerous. There are animals."

'Do you mean cows?'

"You must stay here, it will be safe."

It was at about this moment that one of the policemen, a big fat burly man, accidentally knocked his gun with his arm. The gun fell out of its holster and the policeman grabbed at it, which ended with him catching it but pointing it towards my groin and with enormous great relief all round none of his clumsy fingers had knocked the trigger. 'Oh yes, I can see it will be much safer here.'

Despite the dangers I relented and agreed to a sleepless night outside the police station. I asked George about the road, whether it was possible.

"Tonight no. Tomorrow it is possible."

"Yes, yes, okay, tomorrow. But is it easy? I mean, in a car is it possible?"

"In a car it is very, very difficult" he winced, "but on your bike you will be fine." I was very pleased to meet someone who understood the obvious superiority of bicycles over cars. But then he went on. "By the way the weather for tomorrow is for rain." 'Oh great, I'm glad I'm wasting the last hour and a half of sunny daylight this evening then!'

The rather modern police station outside of which I spent the night

Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 15,327 km (9,518 miles)

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