Day 152: Khashuri to Zestaponi

A lot of up but a lot more down 

We wound through the hills  today, heading up to start with and then 20 minutes of descending, fantastic. The only problem is making sure we don’t lose Tiger, the Blue Strawberry is so fast downhill. It was pretty chilly to start with, around 10˚C (50˚F) and there were thunderstorms forecast for midday, but somehow the rain never quite materialised and as we descended the temperature rose.

Descending through the green valley highway.

Rugged up for the cold.

By the time we arrived in Zestaponi the sun was poking through and it was getting pretty warm, and our afternoon stroll through the town was in t-shirts.

We’ve had a couple of shorter days in a row now. Partly because there aren’t a lot of towns with hotels or guesthouses, so finding somewhere the right distance is pretty hard, but also because I’ve been suffering with a cold and a fever. Hopefully I’m over that now because we have about 190km to do in two days now – time to crack on to catch the ferry across the Black Sea.

Zestaponi in the sunshine

Lots of descending keeps the average speed up!