THE ANCIENT CAVE CITY OF VARDZIA - GEORGIA 🇬🇪 - Australia to Scotland by road - Episode 83

Our outside clothes lines we setup in the last episode didn’t fair too well in the downpours during our stay on the river bank. The forecast didn’t look promising so we had bought them under the awning though the dampness of the air prevented anything from happening. The next morning we moved everything inside again on make shift lines running l through the Troopy and cranked the heater till everything dried out. Far from an ideal situation though sometimes life on the road call for adaptations.
When everything finally dried we packed up and headed out of the forrest and back on the road. As we now turn west we’re nearly on our original path in Georgia before the border fiasco. This path takes us back past the capital Tbilisi and on to some of the ‘best’ roads we have driven on in a long while. ‘Best’ is somewhat subjective as we actually prefer a lesser quality road with a more local experience. So to be more specific, these were 4-6 lane smooth concrete finish highways. Quite mundane though good for covering ground. We had planned on revisiting Tbilisi as it is actually a beautiful city though the lure of the mountains in the north stole our attention so we pushed on.
Off the main East/West highway we begin our journey back deep in to the southern mountains, winding our way through lush green valleys, past fast flowing crystal clear rivers, and through sporadically located towns. These valleys were once important trading routes and throughout the hills lie ancient forts in various states of decay.
We arrive at our final destation for the day - Vardzia, and find a spot adjacent the rock face city to camp for the night. The temperature is a beautiful dry warm heat and as we settle in a friendly shepherd passes with his herd of cows while the sun sets over the valley. The city of Vardzia was hand carved into the solid rock face under the direction of King/Queen Tamar for protection from the moguls in the 12th century. An estimated 50k people lived in the network of tunnels and caves that made up the city which had only one reported entrance. Unfortunately in the 13th century a massive earthquake split the entire face of the rock off and exposed the city destroying is defence and rendering it an easy target. The Persians later attacked and destroyed the city in the 16th century and apart from the monks who still inhabitant the city it is now abandoned.
From Vardzia we retrace our steps back out of the valley, dodging the aimlessly wondering cattle, stopping in at a well restored fort, crossing a few creeks, before finding a great camp spot in an open field This area is marked on hiking routes due to it’s natural hot springs. During the Soviet era a lot of hot springs were converted into more a bathhouse style arrangement with multiple closed concrete rooms. Since the collapse of the USSR these bathhouse hot springs have also collapsed and are now crumbled shells which at times can be not so inviting. Nevertheless this one was jammed full of locals so we gave it a miss with the intention of checking it out on the way back through.
That’s it for this episode, in the next one we head back north and to one of our favourite places in Georgia.
Thanks for watching.
Jolie and Mark

[@abo7amad34]

Everything is beautiful from you and you are kind and may the Lord protect you🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹👍

[@TheWayOverland]

Thanks 👍🏼

[@rohankerr8891]

Beautiful scenery. The history is amazing. Well done guys.

[@TheWayOverland]

Thanks Rohan

[@johndiaz7240]

Thank you

[@babulexplorer]

beautiful view !, wow amazing trip, greeting 👍👍👍

[@TheWayOverland]

👍🏼

[@NextMeridianExpedition]

Just looked at 7 videos straight. Super cool trip guys! love the car and adventure :)

[@TheWayOverland]

Cheers, looks like you've got a bit of an adventure ahead of yourselves too!

[@stevestott1514]

Wow what a beautiful countryside along that rout . Plus’s all those old forts made for another area I would like to visit some day . Your beautiful travel videos have sure given me a lot of places to travel to some day , so thanks again for all the hard work you do during your travels to bring these beautiful spots to us . Cheers from Steve Stott in Sutherlin Oregon U.S.A. :):) 👍😁🍺.

[@TheWayOverland]

Cheers Steve, plenty of amazing forts in Georgia! Plenty of amazing lots of things actually!

[@user-qb8uj4hv8s]

Great.

[@mikedaddo242]

Legends

[@mountainconstructions]

The Best SImply the Best

[@GoingTheWholeHogg]

Great to see the videos back and glad you guys managed to resume your trip! Were you in Georgia last summer? We were camping with an overlanding 4x4 for a bit there and loved it. The scenery around Vardzia is just gorgeous. Looking forward to see what else you guys have been up to! Kim

[@TheWayOverland]

Cheers Kim, yep late summer. Our time frame was a bit tight, and they wouldn't let us in, so we hopped all over the place quick quickly! We loved the North in the next few videos, such a beautiful part of Goergia.

[@GoingTheWholeHogg]

@@TheWayOverland Yeah, the mountainous region in the north is spectacular, glad they let you guys in and at least you got to see some great bits even on a tight timeframe!

[@krutishramavat4794]

What month you did georgia trip??? It will help me plan my trip thanks

[@nigelandsueadventures]

Another great episode guys. Really enjoying these. What's the camera set up you have on the windscreen to get the footage out the front?

[@TheWayOverland]

Cheers guys, we just use the Sony, the same camera we use for all the shooting. It's pretty clunky using that system and if we knew we were going to shoot so much out the front we would've mounted something permanently.

[@nigelandsueadventures]

@@TheWayOverland is it suction mounted to the windscreen? We find we get a lot of reflection. We’ve used both a GoPro and the iPhone, maybe our windscreen is more slanted giving more reflection.

[@TheWayOverland]

Nope, Jolie just holds it, so I guess it’s a custom mount? The end of the lens is on the glass so that probably stops the reflection. In the early days we used a GoPro that was mounted under the rear view mirror that worked OK though it was an old one and we didn’t like the footage quality.

[@neil9381]

Similar to Ajanta/Elora caves in India

[@TheWayOverland]

Indeed it is, which we checked out way back in Ep 46.

[@dinkaman2160pukka]

nice! r u the couple who ran into problems in Iran?

[@TheWayOverland]

Cheers, yes, we did stay there longer than planned.

[@nepaleseinchina]

Yeah she was the georgian King.👍

[@TheWayOverland]

👍🏼