Countries

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Who needs roads?

Posted by on 24, Jun 2010 in 2010 - The Caucasus, Caucasus, Europe, Georgia | 0 comments

Who needs roads?

The weather we’ve had in Tbilisi has been nice. Sunny mornings and cloud later on meaning we never boiled. It has been around 30C and even when we wake up it is usually mid 20’s, but come the late afternoon it always looks as though we are about to have a tremendous storm but we never do. Leaving Tblisi in the morning was no different and we swept past Tbilisi on the ‘M25’ bypass along with the occasional truck and car gazing down on the sprawling city below as if we were in an aircraft. Here we passed our Bonus Sea on the eleven seas tour “The Tblisi Sea”...

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Tbilisi

Posted by on 23, Jun 2010 in 2010 - The Caucasus, Caucasus, Europe, Georgia | 0 comments

Tbilisi

After being woken by Daisy the calf mooing and bringing our early morning milk delivery we got a taxi into the city. We touched 100kph in the city centre and the driver was going carefully for Lindas backs sake. It was terrifying, 6 lanes of traffic with closing speeds of over 200 kph, in a city centre, with no seat belts on, one hand out of the window and the other holding the mobile and the obligatory fag, brazenly overtaking into the oncoming traffics lanes and he looked as cool as a cucumber. We were in the foetal position in the rear crying like babies! When we arrived at the tourist...

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The Badlands…

Posted by on 21, Jun 2010 in 2010 - The Caucasus, Caucasus, Europe, Georgia | 0 comments

The Badlands…

We left the Botanical Gardens at Batumi in bright sunshine and to hearty waves from the cafe staff. The car park attendant looked particularly chuffed when we have him an extra 5 GEL. He had charged us 2 to park overnight, made sure we were tucked away for the night and buttoned up and introduced us to the local bobby. All for about 70p. The road was OK but very wiggly. Georgian drivers are notoriously nutty. So on tiny roads winding up steep hills they tear past flashing their lights at the oncoming truck like phasers as if that will somehow make it vanish. I am sure that if we had another...

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Nothing for it, it’s back to Europe then!

Posted by on 20, Jun 2010 in 2010 - The Caucasus, EuroAsia, Turkey | 0 comments

Nothing for it, it’s back to Europe then!

After 2 extra nights in our lay-by watching it rain and the dolphins consider becoming land species we decided it was time to head back to Europe. So, 40 minutes later we were jostling for positions at the Turkish border with a dozens of other vehicles. On the way to the border we past miles and miles of parked trucks. As we edged forward one car space every 5 minutes or so we thought it must take weeks for those lorries to cross the border. It was in the end pretty painless especially on the Georgian side but as usual the Turkish controls were bedlam. Once again as we crossed the line on...

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Hold tight… Ooops!

Posted by on 16, Jun 2010 in 2010 - The Caucasus, EuroAsia, Turkey | 0 comments

Hold tight… Ooops!

After a lovely night in our roadside plot up by the crashing waves of the Black Sea we were just having our customary tea in bed when the heavens opened in what can only be described as a storm of apocalyptic proportions. Within a few seconds the water was coming through the air con unit as if someone was pouring a bucket of water straight into the van. Clearly our tiny roof drains were totally inadequate and it was all hands to the buckets. It is hard to imagine how much water was gushing into Taffy but suffice it to say I never want to go into a submarine! Quick thinking was required...

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The Black Sea coast

Posted by on 15, Jun 2010 in 2010 - The Caucasus, EuroAsia, Turkey | 0 comments

The Black Sea coast

The drive along the coast to Trabzan is lovely. The road passes through numerous towns, some of which looked much nicer than Unye with promenades along the sea shore and cafés in parks with plenty of trees and grass. It is certainly much nicer than our guide book lead us to believe. It was in fact nice to be driving as today it is so humid and hot its almost unbearable. Putting the electric cable away this morning I had sweat running down My face in just a couple of minutes and was glad to retreat to the air conditioned luxury of Taffy. Its not the heat that gets you its the humidity. We...

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