On the advice of the manager of Browns Bar, I made the trip to Borjomi a day trip to include heading south to Rabati Castle in Akhaltsikhe, and the cave city further south of Vardzia. I found a lot of recommendations for a private taxi service through GoTrip. I used a similar service in Uzbekistan to travel long distances, and this made perfect sense. It estimated a 8 hour day, and was pretty spot on.

At 9am my man, Rostom, arrived and we battled Tbilisi morning traffic to give way from the city and into beautiful green mountains and forests. Most astonishing was it somehow became increasing beautiful, a natural lovers perfect dream.

Rostom handed me his phone, Spotify on the screen, and asked me to chose the music for this trip. I figured I should chose some Aussie music, and Powderfinger came to mind. Soon enough we had ourselves a new Powderfinger fan, as Rostom tapped away at the beats and tried to repeat some of the chorus’.

Hours passed and we arrived in Akhaltsikhe, and it’s pretty impossible to miss Rabati Castle, the large structure overlooks the town and is quite literally the dominate feature as far as the eye can see.

It is incredibly well kept, much like most of Georgia. Everything is so clean in this country, and litter is completely absent. I think maybe the castle is a little too clean, it does look like it was only built this year, but of course that’s far from the truth.

The castle, or fortress, dates back to the end of the 12th century, and has stood against enemies without falling. In 1393 our mate from Uzbekistan, Timur (or Tamerlane), also attempted to invade and couldn’t bring Rabati down.

Next stop was Vardzia. Rostom looked confused at the plot Google Maps had come up with. It was over a hour too long, and after conferring with some other taxi drivers, they told him the correct way the locals use.

He stopped and asked a few locals on the way we were in the correct path, all while Google Maps was having a melt down trying to plot a way back to where in wanted, while ominously increasing the destination time to over 4 hours. I couldn’t help by wonder if we really were going in the wrong direction and at some point we’d need to knock on a door and slept in their barn for the night.

An hour later the spectacular Vardzia caves come into view. As we wound around the mountains, an entire cliff face, exposed for all to now see, the dozens of caves spotted the rock, while modern ramps and railings guided visitors over it.

Rostom dropped me off at the base, and he left to visit a nearby monastery. Rostom was a deeply religious man, and I can’t count the number of times he crossed himself while driving. I’m not even sure what he was making the sign of the cross to, it seemed to be random to my eyes.

For an extra 3GEL a minibus will drive you up to the entrance to the complex. This is very much worth it, it would be killer of a walk up, then only to be greeted with stairs and rock to reach to top.

Not going to lie, the level of unfitness and the altitude really kick my arse at first. I had to pause half way up, reconsidering by decision to reach the top of the cave complex. But after a break to regain my breath, and someone appearing behind me, I spurred myself in and made it to the summit.

As always, when you’ve defeated an obstacle, you suddenly feel great and wonder why you doubted you could overcome the struggle. And yep, this one was worth it.

The views of the mountains and valleys below were fantastic. The caves, located in the sheer mountain face were mind boggling. How did people live here? Why did people choose to live here??

Vardzia has been occupied since the Bronze Age, but the first cave dwellings were excavated in 1156 by the Christian king George III of Georgia, continuing after his death for decades. This would climax in 1203 with the Persian invasion, where here in Vardzia the Georgian army would be victorious over Suleiman II of Rum, however with heavy losses on both sides.

It was finally time to end the road trip with my new Georgian mate, double back and make our way north to Borjomi. It was 2:30pm, we’d made good time ignoring Google. After an 8 hour road trip, I desperately needed to just have a lie down and take my shoes off.

Oh what’s that, the guesthouse owner I’m staying at makes his own wine? Well, if you insist…