We wasted no time getting ready to leave, but it still took the better part of the morning and afternoon to leave Batumi. We had marked out a route that would take us to Tbilisi via some mountains in the south of Georgia. We knew we were probably going to have to wait around a bit again in Tbilisi while getting our Iranian visas so we didn’t mind taking a long route to get there if the route was nice, and we figured some mountain riding almost always provides a good ride.
The road out of Tbilisi started out long and flat, lined with Eucalyptus tress and petrol stations, small markets and tyre repair stations. It then picked up the course of a river and started up into the mountains (though not at a very steep gradient). The sky was darkening with clouds and we were pretty sure it would rain in the near future.

  
  
It was getting darker earlier and when, at about 4:39 we passed a good grassy camping spot at a wide meander in a river we decided to call it a day and set up. It wasn’t a moment too soon, almost right as we started putting the tarp up the rain started to fall. We got the tarp up quickly and took shelter underneath for the rest of the evening before eventually heading off to sleep. It was s short first day back, but cycling out of a city tends to be a bit shorter than a normal day anyway.