Country: Estonia
Distance travelled: approximately 220km
Weather: Sunny with occasional showers

I took a short stroll along the lake we had camped beside in the muggy warmth of morning before returning to the van to wake Mark up for breakfast. There was quite a lot of wild strawberries ripe in the woods as well as a few other berries I couldn’t identify but not many mushrooms were around. It must be too early in the season yet.

We headed off at about 10.30am, passing some elderly ladies on the rough dirt road out laden with baskets, they obviously knew what berries to pick at this time of the year. A short detour to Mustvee allowed us the chance to top up supplies from the local supermarket although we did buy some potatoes, onions and garlic from a roadside stall. I was tempted by the smoked fish but decided there was nowhere to keep it that wouldn’t lead to the whole van smelling fishy. And I wasn’t sure how to prepare it nor if I could eat the entire thing myself anyway.

Eventually we reached Tartu, where we had heard that there was a good market. Inadvertently, while driving into town looking for a place to park, we ended up right beside it although I only worked this out where I spotted the huge bronze statue of a pig. We wandered in, into heaven, and staggered out with some smoked ham, about a kilo of pork we hoped to be able to roast on our BBQ eventually and, finally giving into temptation, a smoked herring fillet. I will have to keep it wrapped up tight until I finish it.

The other attraction for us in Tartu was the Museum of KGB cells. We got the address and drove there, parking not far down the street, but found upon arrival that they shut at 4pm, leaving us just twenty minutes to look around. Luckily it was just a small place so we rushed though getting an overview and taking photos and then went back and had a closer look in the remaining time. It was a very interesting display, giving a good idea of the history of Estonia in relation to both the Soviet and Nazi occupations. There were many photos and other objects and they supplied information cards in several languages including English.

 

From Tartu, we headed to the Soomaa National Park where I had read another motorhome traveller had spent the night near the information centre. We have had good luck so far with the Estonian National Parks, they have a great search engine on their website. The GPS suggested a long drive, close to two hours around to the north of Soomaa presumably following major roads but I could see on the map a more direct route.

Once we entered the confines of the national park these roads soon turned to gravel and corrugations, as they generally do, and we had to turn off the GPS to stop it continuously telling us to turn around. Unfortunately this meant that we missed the turnoff to the information centre and we were in the process of a u-turn when we hit something and suddenly a flat tyre! Only just this morning I had wondered aloud if we had a wheel wrench and now we were about to find out. Since a corner on a narrow dirt road was no place for our first tyre change we slowly drove the few hundred meters back to the information centre and set about fixing our problem.

The jack, nestled into a polystyrene formwork under the passenger seat came out and yes, a wheel wrench too. We had just got the front wheel jacked up and were trying to figure out how to access the spare wheel when a lady pulled up beside us. Her first question, did we plan to stay the night? was answered with us responding that we hoped to if that was ok. It appeared that it was more than ok, there was water and even power if we wanted to use it (she actually said the power supply was Intermitent but available) and we could have a fire using the supplied wood. She then proceeded to tell us about the many walks and lookouts and other places to camp. We finally said this location was perfect and that we would be into the information centre in the morning to talk to her about the walks. She smiled cheerily and headed home, I’ve not felt that welcomed for a long while.

Changing the flat tyre proceeded without a hitch, once the spare was extracted and we soon had everything sorted. The entire process was made quite entertaining by the huge kamikaze flies, as big as the end joint on my thumb, flying smack into the side of the van as we worked. They hit the van walls, then the ground, lying there buzzing and waving their legs about and then after a minute or two, they were off again.

Filling up our fresh water tank, we tried to find out what the helpful lady warned us about when she said the water smelled to foreigners. It wasn’t the sweetest water I have ever tasted but it was a definite improvement on Maryborough water so we weren’t worried especially since we don’t drink the tank water anyway. This location looked like the perfect opportunity to cook our piece of pork so Mark set up the BBQ while I took advantage of unlimited water to do a little more washing. Sometimes we look like a traveling laundry.

Some roasted potatoes, onions and garlic accompanied Marks’ pork masterpiece for dinner and then we sat beside a fire drinking one of our cheap drinks bought yesterday until the mozzies drove us in. A long shower and then we crashed, tired and full, into bed.