Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Kobuleti it runs 441 km to Kobuleti; allow about 10 h 35 of riding. It goes by way of Imnati, Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands, Grigoleti and Churia. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Ispani
Most of Georgia's Black Sea coast is subtropical, with tea plantations, citrus groves and lush forests, and on the plain near Kobuleti, between the sea and the hills, lies one of the strangest landscapes in the Caucasus. The Ispani mires are raised peat bogs, domes of sphagnum moss that have grown over thousands of years, fed only by rain, and they are among the few such bogs in the subtropics. They are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands, inscribed in 2021.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Ispani is where the day begins. Next is Imnati.
2. Imnati
Imnati sits on the Kolkheti lowland, the flat, wet corner of western Georgia where the Rioni river reaches the Black Sea. The land here is marsh, reed bed and alder forest, laced with canals and small lakes, and it is one of the most important wetlands in the region, with a coastal national park that UNESCO recognised in 2021 for its Colchic rainforests and wetlands. Poti, ten kilometres away, is a port town of nearly fifty thousand people, with a harbour full of cranes and a quiet old centre.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Imnati comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands.
3. Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands
Rain is the first thing you notice on Georgia's Black Sea coast, which gets some of the heaviest rainfall in the Caucasus and grows a green, tangled forest to match. The Colchic forests and wetlands lie between the sea and the foot of the Lesser Caucasus, behind the resort town of Kobuleti and inland from the lanes of Ispani, with Chakvi, a small coastal town of eight thousand people, about eighteen kilometres away and Batumi not much further. UNESCO listed the Colchic rainforests in 2021 as a remnant of the temperate forests that once covered this part of the world, with trees such as alder, hornbeam, beech and the evergreen cherry laurel, hung with lianas and ferns.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 97 km into the recorded legs you reach Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands. Next is Grigoleti.
4. Grigoleti
Grigoleti is a strip of pine woods and black sand on Georgia's Black Sea coast, squeezed between the sea and the great reed beds of Lake Paliastomi, a few kilometres north of the resort of Ureki and a short hop south of the port of Poti. It is a holiday place for Georgian families rather than foreign tourists, with guesthouses among the trees, wooden cafés and a beach that stretches as far as you can see. The sand here, and even more at Ureki, is dark and magnetic, full of iron-rich minerals washed down from the mountains, and locals swear it does wonders for aching joints. After a long day in the saddle feel free to test the theory.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Grigoleti, about halfway. Next is Churia.
5. Churia
Poti, on the Black Sea coast of Georgia, stands at the mouth of the Rioni, the river the ancients called the Phasis, and this is the legendary land of Colchis, where Jason and the Argonauts sailed in search of the Golden Fleece. Churia lies a short way inland, in the lowlands of Samegrelo, among maize fields, hazel groves and wetlands. The area is part of the Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands, a UNESCO site added in 2021, which protects a remnant of the ancient forests that once covered much of the coast, with alder swamps, peat bogs and rare ferns.