more news today once again flared up. these are the images called world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are old today. down in the black sea coast of russia the city of sochi is busy preparing for the twenty fourteen winter olympic games construction is booming transport infrastructure is being completely revamped and disabled access points of being installed across town. but aside from being russia's second lympics city sochi is also one of the country's most popular tourist destinations people flock here for the long hot summer as the spacious beaches on the warm seas busk if you're looking for more than just a time it's also an area filled with some amazing natural highlights.

so i've been spending a lot of so i'm in the city but off in the mountains there's the caucasus reserve which is literally the size of finland so i've met up with very experienced. and we all fall out of bed. it's fair to say that if you're driving up here then you're in for a bumpy ride you might be lucky and find some tama but mostly it's just to try the drugs fortunately alexei's wonderfully named wattage is up to the top. last month not look like much of this is spin spin on this the seconds and. we're going up and down to crash the blasts. still going. to the

full. result it's. just a couple of days in the caucuses reserve it's on for the mountains the biosphere here is filled with unique flora and fauna some of the best hiking trails in the country. but getting to them wasn't going to be easy. especially as there are plenty of places that even the wozzeck can't go. james take this one place it'll be my bike. i'm on the blue one. to get into the forest we need to cross the nearby river but along the rugged paul's like these you need to be careful where you're putting your wheels. on the. problems of. simple he's pretty easy to.

me that's a series of. shows. and once we were up and rolling it was time to head across the. room the deployed. we're going to avoid boy. this is. alex a work says the head of a conservation knows almost everyone based in the coax is national reserve he gets to go home most nights but they're all forest rangers that live here with their families three hundred sixty five days a year and their little enclave was on a stone. the rangers are here to police the reserve and keep it as unspoiled as possible and even though it's still late summer they're already preparing for the winter. area comes a total of fifty four felson take this means you've got

a lot to do considering that the group is very small the season is almost over shall we help out of course sure. help is always welcome. it was great to eat some real food after a long rawitsch and lending a hand in the field seem like the least we could do. quite a lot of upkeep this place and that includes several hungry horses the more hay we collect now. ship enough to really see them all through the winter. right how much i can balance my fork could and. i'm sure a couple of hours we've gathered a mini mountain and range alexander took us off to collect all reward we still had a fair way to go and i was pleased to have someone else doing the hard work. ok in

the stirrups. so i'm on book here. which i guess means that i like says on sunday. hoping that it should make going up the hills a little easier anyway oh boy. was all going to go out his role the spirits had mountain to control we rode off into the forest. got the calm one here the pulse here can be a little treacherous and i was glad to have alexander leading the way down to the water's edge. we managed to cross over but with the pathway getting narrower alexander was forced to turn back with the horses and alexei and i were on foot again but not for long. we're way past the river spring the high point but the water here is still fairly blowing so alex

and i going to need something quite sturdy we're going to get down in one piece and i think. that mission do the trick nicely. as i'm. ranting is one of the most popular summer sports up here in the mountains and various. companies offer trips down the river and extra crew to make up the numbers and it certainly helps with the paddling. but it wasn't exactly white water as you can probably tell because of the fact that i'm still dry but we've made it way down here and now. we get to tackle the cliffs themselves. i was expecting a nice hike couple coughed up in the reserve and apparently one does exist you just

have to climb up to it. what i'm worried about. is that this is supposed to be the easy. car. grabbing a helmet and harness from the group at the bottom of the cliff i've prepared for the ascent. in a couple of old clothes before this is particularly steep. has got me through everything so. i can put my faith and i can. put on first attempt the student exactly inspire confidence. that's a term that's for sure he's having a bit of trouble i might need some. they

. are you coming ok here goes nothing. let's see how far we will get up. it seems to do this well you have to haven't. credibly strong finger it's as it's impossible. with the whole hand otherwise it can be a very painstaking process but after some long breaks and the old cut and bruise we made it to the polls above. well we've made it to the top. broken. feeling sore. my shoulders are going to say but. i.

finally we have mountains all around us and a clear road ahead and i could start our trek into the middle of the reserve we still had a long climb in front of us but at least it wasn't vertical this time. the trails just started to even out of it thankfully it's been really tough so far it's the spacing. because i think it's all going to be worth it. this trail is only been created in the last few years and it's made the tough journey up into the reserve considerably easier meaning more people have a chance to enjoy it but there's still plenty of work going on up here to make the area more welcoming for tourists. something like

a four hour hike into the mountains. some construction work but. kindly. free the least i can do is do my bit for the national parks. all the building is done using ecologically friendly material and the team up here are busy creating two new houses for those visitors who prefer not to sleep out in the elements but for now. it's a case that if you want a decent kip you bring your own tent. she's going to try to get her out quickly before the weather changes. did the big gray suit. fortunately we brought a modern tent with us and it was only a few minutes before everything was staked out and ready to go.

home sweet have. time to think. it wasn't exactly going to be haute cuisine but as long as it was hot and there was plenty of it it was fine by me. here take this you can warm up with some tea. i recommend drinking it with some honey from our local bees because it's naturally effective. in the meantime i was enjoying a brew with a good dollop of honey and it's a bit of a local specialty here. the reserve is full of beautiful flowers like these and that means millions of be nice gray caucasian mountain bees to be

a slice. of the tastiest honey. in the region. miller has been a beekeeper in this beautiful spot for more than twenty five years and has dozens of hives in her back garden and the residents are incredibly well behaved. that's the first time i've ever seen anybody open a hive and not use smoke. told me that the bees were quite friendly and it. seems to be the case. the bees are perfectly adapted for the mountain flowers and supposedly have the longest tongues of all honey bee. all of them serving her majesty the queen. breeds the queen specially and uses them to start new hives here and across the region. the highly prolific and it doesn't take the workers long to produce a honeycomb like this just don't expect them to give it up easily.

we're going to share it with. an energy the honey was a great start but i was ready for my main course at. the chicken. there are many wild animals out here. we could even see bears today for lucky. they might come to our tent even. because there aren't any berries. because there hibernation is. so let's not leave any empty cans i. don't want to meet the hungry.

take precautions. let's have some meat. when you camping there's always room for more calories and who can resist chicken from a can. that moments everything's going to taste good. and after just four or five minutes on the boil it was time to dig in. james hundred pull over. this is porridge or soup or i don't know what exactly to call it it doesn't matter. we just need to eat it up with food we eat out here needs to be filling with lots of calories so you have plenty of energy to . get all uppity. and some for me. so how is it. that anything about eight out of.

it was completely exhausted and with darkness closing in i was ready to crawl into my sleeping bag and just took that alexei didn't smell too much. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

international airport in the very heart of moscow.

with another long day ahead in the caucasus reserved aleksei was keen to get going shortly after sunrise and i secretly wondered down to a nearby street. for. morning. very misty mountain day. and told me to try and wake up. and that. will certainly do all. plants in a decent cup of tea of course and around here it has to be some of the local brew. one thing that the russians and the british certainly share is a great love of tea and here in the sub tropical south the lucky russians actually have the climate that they can grow themselves this is the tea plantation

and it will be hard to believe that it's the biggest in the country. it's been here since the late one nine hundred forty s. but the whole operation was restored and modernized back in two thousand and six the plants themselves are extremely robust and able to survive winter temperatures which can drop below freezing but they have to be harvested carefully and one man who knows all about that the man who's worked in the tea business all his life. with those not. just the tips that there are we make green tea from these leaves why don't you try some of the best and very healthy the healthiest and tastiest part of a try can we of course want. into little bits because of the talent thing and. i think i prefer mine in a cup. becoming an expert tea pick it takes time and experience but they're always looking for new recruits.

each plant has to be harvested up to eleven times a season and they certainly and the jewel. they give us come out of one of these issues in your absolutely so you can see why you need these sort of clothes but. when you think about whole way each one of these sacks weighs around forty kilos and they're delivered daily to the new processing plant. as part of all the load from the fields and we going to see how it's turned into the green sea. might seem works only automated production line and that's a two man job. just about put it. that. they hear they go to the steamer the temperature is ninety degrees you.

get you know after that they're cooled by this ventilator. which is the then they're weeded from. it but then they're dumb to go into a roller which whips them. with the beach on the tealeaves then subject it to easing with. the results look a bit like this. the process to use send to the packing factory and it's ready for . that is the team making process from start to finish that will the remains is for me to sample the goods myself. and i have to say the drinking mountain tea in the mountains takes particularly good and enjoys to alex and i packed up and settle for again ready to make our way right into the center of the reserve. james check this place out.

you know it's very interesting because it is here about the russians german troops operating in the mountains was that that was during world war two otherwise known in this country is the great patriotic war. the germans were aiming to break through to the black sea and seize its oil deposits there. that the fighting in the mountains was a tough job considering the local terrain around us. that there weren't any tourist routes back them. and nearby was some considerably older landmarks. or the more these stone structures might well date back a thousand years people began breeding lifestyle keer in the attempt century shepherds use these structures as shelters if these twelve ruins are anything to go by a dozen shepherds would stay here at a time while their animals graced up in the mountains or.

as we move forward into the mists we passed on the travellers making their way towards camp and they told us we were close to an oasis. you can swim here. we're. thinking about having a swim. every weather was better go ahead. it's not cold. this is the round lake it's fed by six surrounding springs and it's clear waters team with wildlife and you know this lake formed as a result of glaziers making depressions in the ground it's likely to be hundreds of thousands or even millions of years old.

and just beyond its banks there's a view that's worth all the effort it takes to get here. so i said i want to see the most beautiful part to the mountains and i think definitely counts it might have taken on with the day of walking on a pretty uncomfortable night and finally made it right at the heart of the caucus is that there. is a been an amazing journey but i wasn't relishing the thought of lugging my pack down the mountain on foot but one of sorties a limb. development's was about to come to my rescue. to the well obviously you know. to find a civilized way of getting down is about the best thing. and. i said goodbye to alexei and prepared to head

down back to the city of sochi but before i did i thought i deserved a little or no the only thing that i want to do now is steve away my aches and pains in the bania or the bath house and it's probably one of the most russian thing. or in this case is it. a love l.o.l. i mean it's the british band yeah that's right can i come in thank you very much. j j that's all i was thinking am i going to see pictures of the queen on the wall the old cricket bat here in there so what's the british about the british. well even though not very british anyway i think. the to do with the fact that it's like a british tradition to get. them in one place like. james looking has

lived and worked in russia for more than fifteen years and he's turned his pandya into one of the areas most popular sports but it's not always been easy to retreat didn't work because people will include russia they want to come on holiday to drink. and you know barbecue especially so their idea of sharing teaching and walking in the mountains you know it wasn't very. well but in the end we built a barn you know by new works and it all went from there. and as i went away to get changed the first room was heated up well wait and see what. the temperature inside the push is one hundred degrees celsius more than two hundred foreign oil the process is all about getting rid of the body's impurities stiffening the system and having the man tell me and hold it. and it'll be something that's a helmet. the whole experience is very intense and feels more like

a tribal ritual than a spy. but if you find yourself getting into light headed there's a sure way to wake you up again. mind body and soul. space was less. fortunately the pain is temporary and they have an extremely original recovery method. this really felt.

ok so being covered with honey beaten with sticks and then boiled pots might not be traditionally british but some things never change so they wanted something to be used. and this. is is actually see i bring back from england the time i travel there. is. of course you know. what it's. called enjoying. it was an eccentric but wonderfully relaxing end to my trip into the reserve the scenery up here is incredible and a stark contrast to the bustling city a short distance below it is another side of sochi that no one should miss.

this is is trash to get rid of. but it's also a treasure. it's worth fighting for. and the trap was no way out.