We are parked up in a campground in the Lahemaa National Park at the northernmost point of Estonia - which makes it also the northernmost point of the EU's contiguous states. It's our second night as guests of the RMK, Estonia's state forestry, and we are very impressed by their facilities. Last night's parking area at Vosu had dry toilets, several fire pits, firewood and splitters, and wooden shelters and picnic tables. Tonight's spot at Purekkari has similar facilities, spread over a wider area, and all completely free.
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| Boulders everywhere |
As we were setting up yesterday afternoon a red pick-up pulled up and a man in smart brown overalls strolled towards us. We had the usual British response to a uniform and assumed we had done something wrong, but he identified himself as the ranger, and asked if we had found the water tap for the well. We had. After the usual pleasantries, Nick asked about local walks, and we were taken to the map board and given a detailed run down of all the nearby walks, campgrounds and points of interest. This morning we followed his recommendation and found a wonderful 4.5km walk around a headland at Käsmu, which has a large boulder field with erratics dragged by glaciers from as far away as southern Finland. The path took us on a well marked tour of the shore, reedbeds and wild roses, deciduous and pine forest, and grassland, before returning through the village. There were information boards at regular intervals in Estonian and English, and all four of us agreed it was one of our most enjoyable walks yet.
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| Useful mushroom identification |
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| Elsa was kind enough to leave us some |
Elsa definitely needed the exercise, having disgraced herself yesterday with an uncharacteristic spell of misbehaviour. After 12 days of using the LGP as sparingly as possible, I had decided to take advantage of its ready availability in Estonia and bake another cake. Said cake was cooling on the table in the van while I prepared tea and Nick did some work. It had been a lovely warm day, and we had decided to use the fire pit and sit outside to enjoy the evening. At some point both of us were outside getting the fire going while the spaniels were in the van. I returned to the inevitable sight of a half eaten cake, and guilty looking Elsa on the bench. Max appears blameless on this occasion, as he was on the floor looking innocent. We are giving him the benefit of the doubt.
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| Cold War remnants |
After our walk around Käsmu, and lunch in the car park, we decided that we liked the area very much, and it would be good to find another RMK campground for tonight, so we drove for about 45 minutes to the top of the neighbouring peninsula here in Purekkari. The drive in through the forest took us through a slightly eerie array of ruined concrete buildings and former military structures which turned out to be a Cold War Soviet radar station left to decay. We are just a couple of hours from Russia here, and reminders are everywhere.
We saw some more interesting Cold War history yesterday, before leaving Tallinn. Our morning walk took us around the park surrounding the old town, from where we got a good view of the walls, and saw the town from a different perspective. Mounted on a section of wall is a plaque honouring Boris Yeltsin, who is credited with overseeing the peaceful restoration of Estonia's independence in 1990/91. Nearby is a large rock used around the same time to block the streets when it was feared Russian tanks would come rolling in. It is now a memorial to the bloodless revolution. The outside of the old town proved so interesting that we walked all the way around it, stopping only to discuss Springers with a British couple from a cruise ship who had left their two in kennels and were keen to tickle some ears.
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| Memorial to Yeltsin |
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| Independence Day |
Tallin had been lovely in the rain, but it was doubly so in sunlight, and even roadworks and delays leaving the city couldn't tarnish its image. The sun did however reveal that Florence was looking a little grubby, so we stopped at a car wash on the outskirts of Tallinn where a nice young man gave her a thorough wash for €20, and let us fill up with water too.
So far we have thoroughly enjoyed Estonia, and we have several more days here, but last night marks our furthest point east, and tomorrow we will continue west towards Latvia.
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| The old town from the outside |
Oh Elsa how could you after your Mum had slaved away over a heated stove to produce a lovely cake. I have to tell you though that you are following a family tradition of cake eating, your great uncle Rex took great delight in eating a Birthday cake in the design of a computer! He was not alone on this occasion, he had a visiting accomplice Flo who tucked into another cake in the shape of a grand piano. They like you had the courtesy to leave some for other guests. Rex’s brother Troy was like you Max not guilty on this occasion. 😉
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