It’s an enormous relief to cross the border into Georgia. We hadn’t had the great time we’d anticipated in Turkey, and this feels like a new start. We stop at a waterfall and then at a fortress on our way to the city of Batumi. Richard jokes that we’ve seen more cool stuff in half a day here than we did in most of Turkey.

We are still not feeling back to full strength, so we stay and rest for a couple of nights in Batumi to shake off the aftermath of the illness. It’s an odd place. There are a staggering number of huge skyscraper hotels and apartments. We stay in a swanky apartment for a bargain, because there is just so much competition. The infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with how fast the buildings have gone up. The roads are barely built, there are few shops, and few places to eat. It’s obviously some kind of no-regulation property bubble, buoyed by hoards of Russians with money to spend and very few places who’ll let them come and spend it.

It’s drizzly on the morning we leave along the surreal coastline of brand new skyscrapers, old crumbling hotels, the historic old town, brand new parks, and a lovely new bike lane to see it all from.

We start a small climb and realise there’s a tunnel ahead of us, and it looks dangerous. There’s a large layby to stop in, where we make the decision to walk through on the escape path and not ride through on the narrow lanes. It also means that when we get to the end we can stay in the tunnel as the rain pours down.

There’s a medium, steep-ish climb in the middle of the day and the scenery is weird and wonderful. It’s so hot and humid, and along with the vivid and bright flora, it feels almost tropical. The triangular mist-shrouded green hills remind me of Taiwan. The tall white-barked trees reminds me of Australia. The rain starts again just as we descend, and we find a bus stop to shelter in.

We take a road along the coast, and through a small seaside town. We pull over at another bus stop to get out of the rain again. I’m not paying much attention to the large concrete bus stop itself, but some Germans with photography equipment pull up in a car and start taking photos of it. When they’ve gone I take a better look, and it’s a beautiful mosaic from the Soviet era, and apparently one of the more famous bus stops in Georgia, as bus stops go.

Even though we planned a fairly short day, the heavy rains means constant stopping, and it feels like it goes on forever. Our next stop is in a public toilet. The rain is so heavy that we cram ourselves and the bikes inside rather than stay out in it. There’s then a long open stretch of nothingness, and finally we cannot escape the downpour. We’re soaked through, and Richard has thoroughly had enough on only our first day’s cycling in Georgia.

Finally we arrive in a muddy, almost flooded, and mostly shut seaside resort town which caters to Russian holiday makers. The main tourist season is over, and most of the businesses are closed up. We are greeted like we are a bother at a questionable hotel which faintly smells of sewage, and with a fridge in the room which smells much worse. We are very lucky that we are fairly close to one of the few open shops, and one of the fewer open restaurants. Richard has his first taste of ostri, a spicy coriander-filled beef stew. It’s very like a curry, and he has it every chance he gets from then on.

A thunderstorm hits overnight, and despite the veneer of unfriendliness, someone at the hotel has managed to move our bikes out of the garden, up some steep steps and undercover from the rain. They weigh over 20 kilograms each and are tightly locked together, so it’s not an insignificant kindness.

Breakfast is a big surprise. It’s served at a fixed and late time, but we can’t turn food down in a town that is basically shut. It’s in a basement room done up like an old tavern. There’s a constant flow of freshly cooked food: Creamy scrambled eggs, bread filled with hot cheese, lots of lovely cakes. The revelation is the wheat porridge, which people are adding spoons of hot butter to.

The day starts off wet, with mud everywhere, but it dries off as we go. Now my eyes are open to them, I see another old and beautiful bus shelter.

We are on a quiet road for the first half of the day, on probably the only flat corridor in Georgia. We see some fairytale churches nestled on the outskirts of forests, and the villages and roads are filled with animals; horses, goats, geese and piglets stroll alongside us.

We join up with a main road for the final part of the ride, and there are more cars and less animals, but we make great ground on the flat.

We go to a small local place for dinner, and are the only ones there. A man serves us hot stew and bread, brings us a pour of local brandy, and tells us to lock up when we’ve finished and then leaves us to it, after a final flourish of putting Georgian pop music on a huge karaoke speaker.

It is boiling the next day. We pass through a large, busy town and I get a treat of beautiful, brutalist Soviet architecture and some stunning mosaics. I am becoming a bit obsessed with these things.

We have arranged a stay at a farmhouse hotel, which promises traditional Georgian food and a lovely rural setting. Near the end of the day the route takes us on a small dirt track. A lorry driver heading to a nearby quarry seems to be telling us that we can’t go the way we want to, so we re-route to a different route through the field. We spend ages riding and walking through rough tracks, and then the undergrowth and some fallen trees make it impassable. We’re only about a mile away, and I’m desperate to find some way to get there, so we try another track through the field. We need to cross a river, so Richard goes off to scout the way ahead, and comes back and tells me we can’t get there. I don’t want to believe it so I go and see for myself. I was so looking forward to staying at this place, but I can see the only bridge across the huge river and it’s broken. We can’t get to the hotel. The only other way is a 50 kilometre detour.

All we can do is to try and get to the next town and find somewhere else to stay. We go back through all the fields. It’s so disheartening, but we get to the next town before dark and just before the rains come again.

Towards the end of another day, and we do get caught again in an almighty storm. Other than in monsoon countries, I’ve not seen anything like it, let alone been out in something like it. We’re on a downhill stretch and it’s running in rivers around our ankles. The most we have managed to shelter under is a medium-sized tree, and it keeps us dry at first, but the thunder and lighting build, the rains somehow gets heavier and after about 40 minutes it’s freezing, we are both shivering, the water is running down the back of my neck and inside Richard’s shoes. I am in sandals, so don’t have that problem, but my feet are freezing. It’s so heavy we can’t open bags because everything will instantly get wet, so we hold fire in the layers we are in. The afternoon is drawing on and we’re worried it’s not going to stop, but the visibility is zero and the roads are narrow, so we have to stay where we are. After nearly an hour it abates enough to leave.

A few miles on, we are shocked to see a pair on a tandem leaving their shelter. We stop and have a chat with Fede and Baaska, who are going the same way as us. It’s great to meet them, but it’s clear everyone is a bit in shock from the storm that’s just hit all of us, and we all have half an eye on the sky with the worry it will come again. We exchange details and part ways – they have found a room further on, but we are stopping in the nearby town.

It starts pelting down again a few minutes later, and we think of them caught in it again while we are able to find a bus stop. We finally get to a place to stay. The woman at the hotel desk doesn’t bat an eyelid about the bikes, and lets us keep them in the lobby, which is such a relief. It rains heavily again the following day, and it’s a good excuse for us to stay an extra night and get some of our stuff dry.

The rain has plagued us so far, and the narrow busy roads have been another source of woe. But there have been glimpses of a beautiful place and we know that we’ll be heading up through mountains, and with some brighter weather ahead we should be in for a treat.

A playlist for the ride: