Adjara is the strangest corner of Georgia, a damp subtropical strip between the Black Sea and the Lesser Caucasus where tea and tangerines grow within sight of snow. Mtirala and Kintrishi are two neighbouring protected areas inland from Kobuleti and Chakvi, and they hold what is left of the Colchic forest, a relict of the lush woodland that covered this coast before the ice ages. Rainfall is among the highest in the country, and the hills are a tangle of beech, chestnut, alder, rhododendron and box, with ferns, lianas and moss on every branch. Mtirala means something like the weeping or the crying one in Georgian, a reference to the constant drizzle and mist, and you can see why.
The Kintrishi river cuts a gorge through the hills, and along it stand small humpbacked stone bridges from the medieval and later periods, built in the days when mule trains carried goods between the coast and the mountains. They are among the best things in the park, and some of them are still crossed by hikers and shepherds. The villages up the valley are among the poorer in Adjara, built of wood and stone with orchards and cattle, and the people are friendly to a stranger who stops for a chat.
Riding is demanding, and a motorbike is not the easiest way in. The road from Chakvi or Kobuleti climbs into the hills past Akhaldaba and Tsikhisdziri, with good tarmac at the start and rougher, patched surface higher up, and the last stretch to the visitor areas is often gravel or mud. Rain makes everything greasy, and landslides are possible after storms. Cows wander on the road, and blind bends are common. Go in late spring, or in September and October when the air is clearer, and expect cloud whatever the season.
The nearest big town is Chakvi, where tea was first planted commercially in Georgia, and the coast road has fuel in Kobuleti and Batumi, the latter a glitzy port city of towers and casinos a short ride south. Fill your tank on the coast, because the hill villages have little. Buy some tea, honey and cheese, and try a hot khachapuri, the boat-shaped Adjarian cheese bread with a runny egg on top. Bring a rain jacket and a change of socks, and be ready for leeches in wet seasons if you wander off the track.