Pigeons roosting in the ruins of Osk Monastery, Turkey by Listening Earth

Our travels seemed to have entered a strange and slightly hair-raising phase.

The region we’ve now driven into is getting close to the Georgian border, and is known as the Georgian Valleys. It lies at the eastern end of Turkey’s Pontic Alps, which stretch along the Black Sea coast and reach their most impressive altitudes in the north east, a region that contains the Kaşkar Daği National Park.

To be honest, ‘valleys’ seems a bit of a meek and mild description. What we’ve found ourselves motoring through is a vertical landscape of precipitous gorges and narrow ravines. Great masses of rock tower above us, and wild water flows everywhere in furious, muddied, churning chaos.

The roads follow the rivers and valley-floors with breathtaking necessity and, err, impressive if eroding engineering. Local Turkish drivers seem obliviously comfortable with these driving conditions, but their ‘confidence’ in the face of blind corners is giving us the heebies, and I have to be careful not to be distracted from the road by the awesome scenery. It is slow and tiring driving.

Adding to the strangeness is the knowledge that these impossible valleys have not only been settled for thousands of years, but were actually the base of a medieval Georgian kingdom, which has left behind some impressive ruins of churches and fortresses hidden away in secret valleys and atop commanding bluffs.

Taking the opportunity of a break from driving, we follow a side valley up to a small village, in the middle of which we find the derelict cathedral known as Öşk Monastery, or Öşkvank.

To find such an impressive building – in quite a good state of repair considering its antiquity – up a hidden valley in such a remote area, we found just plain baffling. Why was it built here with such care and investment, and who came here to worship? If it were anywhere else it would be famous and well-visited. Here it was deserted, its only other visitor an equally ancient-looking local who wandered through the building as a short cut home, touching his forehead in greeting to us as he passed.

But we were not completely alone. Pigeons have colonised the dome and wall ledges, and their coo-ings resounded around the building.

There is nothing like the acoustic reverberance of stone walls, and the low tones of pigeons were as perfect in that place as they were unexpected.

As we inspected the architectural details and faded fragments of murals, the pigeon’s murmurings filled the air and seemed to follow us like the ghosts of a long-gone congregation.

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