Lahemaa National Park (Lahemaa Rahvuspark) is under 100 km east of Tallinn. It is Estonia's first and largest national park. This is my first experience with dreamy hikes through a swampy-boggy place on top of wooden planks which secure your footing.
All in attendance: Kristen and Eric
Eric and I rented a car for a single day from Tallinn and took it to Lahemaa national park. We woke up early the day before to go to Helsinki and arrived back to our CS host's home quite late and continued this no-sleep trend to ensure we got the most we could out of all the hiking we could do in that area.
Hiking through bogs is surprisingly fun because you must walk on top of wooden planks so you don't sink into hidden swamp holes. Sometimes you can see old sunken wooden planks underneath the pathways. I thought we would be attacked by hoards of bugs and mosquito when we went but we survived the hike relatively unbitten and I learn the importance of not being bog-ignorant.
The first and grandest stop was the short hike through the rainbow coloured Viru Raba (raba=bog in Estonian). There's a watchtower where you can get a breath taking birds-eye view of the landscape. There is no way I could describe how beautiful the colours were or how stunning the blue pools are; so instead, I just dumped a bunch of shots.
After the hike, we stumbled upon a creepy old abandon mansion. Perfect place to eat blueberry-white-chocolate-bars and contemplate ghosts. We then took the car to Käsmu, a coastal town located in the park. Walking along a hiking path along the coast, we found that the water at our time of visit was shallow enough to walk across to a nearby island. We took our shoes off and walked across all the pointy stones towards the island.
On that island we saw nesting baby swans and a half decomposing dead animal (aka the ying and yang of life). We walked through trees and sand and found a nice place on some big rocks to sit and enjoy the shade. What better way to enjoy nature's beauty than to enjoy it with strange cheese snacks that I insisted we buy after the delicious Leipäjuusto cheese we ate in Helsinki.
We hiked back across the shallows and continued through the original hiking path. We found large abandon buildings full of debris and great graffiti. We didn't complete a full circuit but we did make good friends with a caterpillar and enjoyed a great view by the water.
On our way home, we stopped by to get a whole bunch of food and supplies at a grocery store in preparation of our long canoe trip we were planning to do. Who knew you could buy a tent, sleeping pad and sleeping bag for just $20! Thank goodness for camping sales!
This is our last night with our CS host, who so kindly let us bum at his house for twice as long as we had originally asked. Thanks good friend!
Things I learned:
- You hike on wooden paths through bogs
- Bogs aren't infested with bugs like how I thought
- Visit Valaste Waterfall
