When I first looked out the window this morning I wasn’t sure if the day was just misty or actually raining. However the water pouring from the downpipe of the building opposite was a pretty good clue that there was more than passing drizzle in progress. Bumma – we had plans for a 14 kilometre walk around the Kasmu Peninsula of the park today before returning our hire car in Tallinn this afternoon. However no need to be too downhearted yet, there was still another hearty hotel breakfast banquet to be dealt with.
By the time breakfast had been consumed and I had written a few days backlog of postcards to my offline reader, the rain had actually stopped so there seemed no reason not to at least attempt a shorter walk around the Kasmu Peninsula. On the way into Vosu we picked up a German hitchhiker who was looking a bit damp; he’d spent the night in a bus shelter after arriving late in the park and was now lugging his 25kg pack to Vosu. After we had dropped him there and I’d posted my postcards we drove on to Kasmu and started with a look at the shoreline near where the walking trail started. It wasn’t looking quite so threatening by now – the odd glimpse of blue sky even – so we grabbed our plastic capes and decide to take a chance on the weather.
As things turned out, less than 30 minutes later there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and we completed our shortened 7km walk in less than 2h:30m. In fact it was pretty much perfect walking weather, shaded most of the way so we didn’t get too hot in the sun, and even the notorious Baltic mosquitoes seemed to have taken the day off. For the first half we followed the coast, at times right on the beach, where we could see the bay strewn with lots of large boulders jutting out of the water. The beaches were also occasionally quite rocky. At the half way point on the north western tip of the peninsula there were a few derelict building that we could only assume used to serve some purpose for the Russian military. One would have offered a good view if there had been the means available to climb to its top floor. The return leg was through the tranquil pine forest.
With that walk done we were keen to see some of the Peat Bog on another trail in the south western corner of the park. On the way we detoured slightly to see one of the large boulders (‘erratic’ boulders according to the local information stands) that had been dragged here from Scandinavia by glaciers thousands of years ago. This one was about seven metres high which gives you some idea of how much grunt a glacier has – especially since this specimen was only the 16th biggest in Estonia.
The nature trail through the bog was (of necessity) on a boardwalk, though thankfully this one was dry. Looking more than a few meters either side of the boardwalk you could almost swear that it was normal firm ground but the squelching under the board walk was a pretty good indication of how wet your feet would get if you stepped off. We only walked a kilometre or so to a viewing tower which enabled you to see that the bog was dotted with what looked like small ponds, though from the tea coloured water in the ones near the boardwalk you just knew that they would not be very inviting. I can’t imagine why it would be necessary for the information boards to say that swimming in them was not allowed, but they did.
We did go for a short drive to the other end of the Bog Nature Trail to try and work out what was indicated by the shaded area of the bog on the map. We believed it had something to do with peat cutting fields, but we couldn’t get close enough to the relevant area to tell for sure.
It was now about 3:00pm and we had to have the car back by 5:00pm so we turned tail and headed for Tallinn as fast as the motorway would allow. Which was actually pretty fast until we reached the section where the inevitable road works meant that all traffic was combined onto one carriage way. Navigation through the city was a bit easier with a better map than usual but some uncertainty about where the hostel we had booked was still allowed us one false start before we found it. No cars allowed in that part of the Old City of course so Laura hauled the bulk of our luggage to the hostel while I loitered in a no standing zone with the car.
We were ready to head for the Europcar office to return the car at 4:30pm but over the course of the next 40 minutes we were to discover that the map of Tallinn supplied by Europcar had both the wrong address and the wrong phone number for their Tallinn office. In the end Laura combed what we believed was the relevant section of the street on foot, and eventually found them after getting a hotel receptionist to ring Europcar and ask them where they were. I meanwhile was eventually able to ring their Riga Office and get the correct address, though the phone number they gave me still didn’t work. By the time Laura and I found each other as I circled the block for the second time we were both pretty exasperated with Europcar and ended up just parking in a car park near their office (rather than the multi-story car park opposite their office that we would have had to circle the block again to get to) and just took the key back to them.
After all the hassle with the car return it was a pleasure to get to our hostel and chat to the friendly Pommy guy manning the reception desk. He even arranged to switch us to a quieter room. We subsequently took up one of his suggestions for dinner, which was a pancake place that serves huge pancakes stuffed with all sorts of savoury and sweet fillings for a quite modest fee. It was nice to be able to finish dinner relatively early for a change and have a quick wander around the beautiful, (very) old town before heading back to the hostel.
By the time breakfast had been consumed and I had written a few days backlog of postcards to my offline reader, the rain had actually stopped so there seemed no reason not to at least attempt a shorter walk around the Kasmu Peninsula. On the way into Vosu we picked up a German hitchhiker who was looking a bit damp; he’d spent the night in a bus shelter after arriving late in the park and was now lugging his 25kg pack to Vosu. After we had dropped him there and I’d posted my postcards we drove on to Kasmu and started with a look at the shoreline near where the walking trail started. It wasn’t looking quite so threatening by now – the odd glimpse of blue sky even – so we grabbed our plastic capes and decide to take a chance on the weather.
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| The Kasmu Peninsula in sunshine |
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| An 'erratic' boulder |
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| The peat bog |
We did go for a short drive to the other end of the Bog Nature Trail to try and work out what was indicated by the shaded area of the bog on the map. We believed it had something to do with peat cutting fields, but we couldn’t get close enough to the relevant area to tell for sure.
It was now about 3:00pm and we had to have the car back by 5:00pm so we turned tail and headed for Tallinn as fast as the motorway would allow. Which was actually pretty fast until we reached the section where the inevitable road works meant that all traffic was combined onto one carriage way. Navigation through the city was a bit easier with a better map than usual but some uncertainty about where the hostel we had booked was still allowed us one false start before we found it. No cars allowed in that part of the Old City of course so Laura hauled the bulk of our luggage to the hostel while I loitered in a no standing zone with the car.
We were ready to head for the Europcar office to return the car at 4:30pm but over the course of the next 40 minutes we were to discover that the map of Tallinn supplied by Europcar had both the wrong address and the wrong phone number for their Tallinn office. In the end Laura combed what we believed was the relevant section of the street on foot, and eventually found them after getting a hotel receptionist to ring Europcar and ask them where they were. I meanwhile was eventually able to ring their Riga Office and get the correct address, though the phone number they gave me still didn’t work. By the time Laura and I found each other as I circled the block for the second time we were both pretty exasperated with Europcar and ended up just parking in a car park near their office (rather than the multi-story car park opposite their office that we would have had to circle the block again to get to) and just took the key back to them.
After all the hassle with the car return it was a pleasure to get to our hostel and chat to the friendly Pommy guy manning the reception desk. He even arranged to switch us to a quieter room. We subsequently took up one of his suggestions for dinner, which was a pancake place that serves huge pancakes stuffed with all sorts of savoury and sweet fillings for a quite modest fee. It was nice to be able to finish dinner relatively early for a change and have a quick wander around the beautiful, (very) old town before heading back to the hostel.
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