Country: Estonia, Latvia
Distance travelled: 210km
Weather: Sunny

When I woke this morning, I left Mark to sleep in and sat outside in the pleasantly cool morning air, wishing our neighbors either side a good morning. Eventually Mark called me back in for breakfast and then we set about packing up for today’s travels. I had checked at the information centre and they didn’t mind us filling our water tanks from their tap so we didn’t have to worry about that for a few days.

Although the wifi network available from the information centre was visible, unfortunately it wasn’t working but I had downloaded a few geocaches yesterday once I knew where we were headed for the night and our first port of call was back to the closest of those. We ended up at a tiny campsite on the far side of Lake Õdri from where the geocache actually was so I left Mark swimming and rode my bike around. It wasn’t far, maybe half a kilometer and I was back quickly and joined him in the water. We had seen a tiny snake, maybe about thirty centimeters long swimming near the bank when we first arrived and Mark said that the skinny little fellow made a dash back to the far side of the lake when he entered the water.

Setting off for Latvia, our first point of call was to be the town of Alūksne where the Nature Museum had a large collection of luminescent rocks. At Mōniste, still in Estonia, we hit roadworks. More EU money at work, according to the signs we couldn’t read. At least there was the starred circle and we had read elsewhere that a lot of roadworks in Estonia were being funded by the EU. The track, for the road had been completely removed and was nothing more than a dirt track one truck wide, lead all the way to the border where miraculously it was paved again.

We had heard that Latvian roads were extremely poor and lacking in signage but as we drove through the small town of Ape, the road was top notch and there was plenty of signs. Maybe their entire quota as the number seemed a little over the top. That all ended outside of Ape unfortunately. Eventually we made it to Alūksne and, after a pause for lunch, headed off to see their rocks. Unfortunately the museum had closed at 2pm and since we really didn’t want to hang around until they were open again there would be no glowing rocks for us.

As a consolation, we decided to check out our first Maxima supermarket instead. I stumbled across a freezer compartment full of pelmeni and with the aid of google translate and a free local wifi connection, I managed to find some sour cream, amusingly (to me at least) known as skābais krējums, to serve with them. We also splashed out on an ice cream each and walked back to the park near where the van was located to enjoy them. While we sat eating, a French motorhome turned up and slotted into the carpark beside our van, the occupants setting off in the general direction of the Nature Museum too.

Cēsis was our next destination. The A2 running south-west from Russia eventually to Rīga was in a ghastly state, the van rocked and shuddered, the cutlery jangled, bottles rattled, things fell off shelves, something in a cupboard somewhere squeaked with every jounce. Mark said he didn’t find it too bad but I hated it. We arrived in Cēsis at about 6pm, parked in a large open dirt carpark and promptly hooked up to the local bibliotēka wifi network. While Mark checked out possible campsites, I read the news about the Malaysian plane shot down over the Ukraine. A few messages had come from people who weren’t sure where we were so I let everyone know we were still alive, not flying anywhere and definitely not going to the Ukraine…no motor insurance…..

The closest Latvian national park, Ērglu Cliffs, was just a twenty minute drive away (and I think the dirt road was better than the bitumen). There was a large carpark, an area with picnic tables and a thunder box from which somebody had removed the ‘box’ part. The walk to view the cliffs was closed for restoration but as this was printed on the large information board, I wondered just how long the track had been out of order.

Mark cooked up our pelmeni, possibly stuffed with either beef or pork mince, boiling them first and then lightly frying them so that they ended up a lot like the dumplings from Glen Waverley we eat back home. Strangely, although we tried both sour cream and then soy sauce separately with them, it was a mixture of the two which suited best. Shop bought pelmeni seem good, I hope to locate some more traditionally made soon.

While I spent the evening doing some more of the endless washing, our carpark became a hot bed of activity. A couple of young lads rode through on their scooter. First one, then the other, then together. They came and went intermittently for about an hour and then, in company with a third lad, walked over to the picnic area with what appeared to be half a spruce tree and a burning branch. I could hear them chatting and breaking branches for nearly another hour before they were gone. I wonder if that’s what happened to the missing part of the ‘loo.

After that, all was quiet. I draped our wet washing about the van, tidied up a little and we watched some TV. It was gone midnight when we finally slept.