Day 3 – Friday 31 July

Munči to Zasa
41km [105km]; 8 hours 10 minutes
Weather fine [just]
A long hard slog today – about 5km into the forest, then 5km of pleasant forest, over 20km along dead straight wide forest roads and 10km out of the forest. One stretch of road was 12km without a bend. The rain held off until the last ten minutes. I should have left 20 minutes earlier, but there was Asterija's guest book to complete and I did fill out the local tourist authority's questionnaire.
Today, I just put my head down – stopped in Dviete after 3km to do some shopping and take a photo of the local church, though can't say if it is catholic or orthodox. Two stops in the forest for a quick drink and bite to eat – about 10-15 minutes each time. I bought three bananas today – very ripe but energy plus.
There were km markers near to Zasa and I was able to check my speed – just over 6kph, so I have picked up my speed. Another reason for the increased pace was the almost constant swarms of march flies which I attempted to out-walk, without success. They attack silently and you generally only become aware of them because of the sting. I had to protect myself and I am sorry to report that there were many casualties. Fortunately they do not squash messily.
The road surfaces were not too bad – moist compacted sand so my feet have not suffered too much. These sorts of days still have their moments, though just getting through is the main task.

Only one conversation – Andris was riding his bike through the forest. He stopped to say hello and to tell me that he had been bird watching and taking photos. He showed me his binoculars, camera and map. I took his photo. I hope you see some today – my attempts to send them through have not yet been successful.

I have just been locked into the house for the night by Inese [the caretaker]. It is a quite large old manor house. I am in sole occupation for the night [for 3 lati or about AUD 7.50] with breakfast an extra lats.
Inese will come back in the morning to unlock and provide breakfast at 7am. Tomorrow is a lighter walking day – probably less than 30km and similar to today – into the forest, long straight boring road though the forest and the walk into town. Jēkabpils is one of the 10 largest towns in Latvia. I am staying at a health resort in the centre of town – the accommodation is apparently a sideline, and I will be able to eat out.
The biggest challenge tomorrow will be to survive my media commitments – two area newspapers [Ilze from Brīvā Daugava and Māra from Jaunais Vēstnesis. However, Lāsma from the local TV station, Vidus Daugava, wants to intercept me whilst walking into town for some action shots. I have refused to do radio interviews though – it seems too immediate with no opportunity to edit at least a few passable comments from the interviews.
Why am I doing this? I'm not really sure. In part because I know that I will be treated gently and also because I feel a degree of responsibility. I hope that at least a few people might derive some degree of fuzzy feeling that a non-Latvian is making a serious attempt to get to know their land. I have gained immeasurably from my involvement in Latvian culture and this is a small gesture in return.
Finally, I need to produce some interesting new material for a talk I am giving on 23 August, two days after we arrive back. The talk will be at a champagne breakfast at the Hilton Hotel and will be illustrated by yet another slideshow, hopefully with television footage.
The breakfast is a fundraiser for the 53rd Latvian Arts Festival to be held in Melbourne over six days at the end of December 2010. Anita is the Festival organiser and it is the main focus of Anita's trip to Latvia – organising guests.
So, the breakfast – I will be speaking in English [apart from the TV interviews]; come along and support a very good cause.
Finally, I heard the sad news that Ivars Dragūns has died. He will be sadly missed. He made a very considerable contribution to Latvian life in Melbourne. Ivars's son Markus is a friend of Jāna's and we are thinking of him.

Day 2 – Thursday 30 July

Lake Svente to Munči
32km [64km]; 7 hours 30 minutes
Weather warm

Fantastic walking for most of the day. The tracks were generally narrow and soft – easy pleasant walking, although, along the Daugava River, in places the sand was too soft and it was like walking along a beach.

The day was in three parts – the walk into Svente from the lake through rolling hills, then through a forest and finally along the river. At Svente, I wanted to buy lunch but the two shops yielded very little. I would have bought the two bananas on offer a week ago, for preference.


I took photos of the local catholic church and the manor house. The latter was a little over-elaborate for my taste; the church, as usual, was the most interesting building in the town.
The forest was extensive. I should not have tried the shortcut. But it was hot and the thought of a shaded walk was seductive. I reckon I was about 500m from the road on the other side of the forest when I turned back. Six kilometres later I was on the other side of the forest, having gone the way I should have in the first place. And this time both maps showed a way [my way] through.
I have been walking quite slowly these two days – about 5.5kph, though the 6km to get to where I should have been took me about 50 minutes. I have been telling myself what a wonderful activity walking is; nine days ago was my last day at work: it had been very stressful, as had been the last week and the last month. Particularly so. And here I was, strolling through Latvia with nothing to worry about. Until I could not find a track through the forest: one that should have been there. There was not only the six kilometres back to where I had been, but the extra hour or so and the additional few kilometres I spent searching for the track that should have been there, but wasn't.
The Daugava walk restored my equilibrium, until I arrived at Munči [a town of perhaps a dozen buildings, though quite spread out. I phoned my host, but her rapid-fire Latvian was too much for me. I could hear a dog barking in the background so I knew I wasn't in the vicinity. I started walking back the way I had come. I told my host that I could see daudz govis [poor spelling and grammar I know, but it took me a while to remember that it should have been the genitive plural, govju. There were an unusually large number of cows in an enclosure. By that stage my host was saying durvis, durvis; kur ir durvis? – where is the door? Durvis, govis – I had always thought they sounded different.
Fortunately, I then saw a young guy on the road. Ludzu I cried. Please! Then I corrected myself, Sakiet ludzu, kur ir naktsmītnes? – 'Excuse me, where is the bed & breakfast?' He looked at me for a moment. Recognising that oral directions were useless, he put down what he was carrying and headed back the way I had just come. 500m later, we arrived. He pointed down the driveway and left. I had been just another passing inconvenience.
Asterija [my host – whose name rhymes with hysteria – my condition by then] was waiting for me. We have had a few more conversations since then. Sometimes, I have tried just nodding. It works for a while but she expects more from me. She gave me a Latvian newspaper to read and a two page questionnaire to complete, in Latvian, from the local tourist authority.
She lives in a century-old house – very similar to Gunta's house near Zaube but unrenovated. She lives in one half, though our paths crossed at dinnertime in the kitchen. She invited me to share a dinner of beans from her garden. A type of broad bean, that went very well with my beef stroganoff. Washed down with kefīrs [a yoghurt-type drink] fresh from the local dairy – where all the cows, that I had tried to use to tell Asterija where I was, actually were.
At dinner, Asterija told me how hard it was to live on her pension [150 lats or AUD500] per month. The Latvian economy is almost an inevitable part of any discussion. Last night though, Jana [my fellow house guest] was insistent that the best things in life don't require money – family, enjoying nature, etc.: it was an uplifting conversation. Asterija with her old, but full-of-character house overlooking the Daugava River, is required to lead a very simple and frugal life. I have already been very lucky with the people I have met on this trip.
As I arrived here, I thought to myself: I have 17 hours to recover before setting off again. Nearly half that time has passed and I must tackle an even larger forest tomorrow. No short cuts!

Day 1 – Wednesday 29 July

Lithuanian border to Lake Svente
32km; 7 hours 30 minutes
Weather warm then showers
I feel wrecked but it is so good to have one day's walking completed. I am staying in a cottage 100m from the lake. There is a glimpse of the water through the trees. The property is on the neck of peninsula which juts out into the lake.
Without GPS, I took a couple of shortcuts which nearly proved disastrous. My rule last year was: don't trust the large scale topographical maps unless the feature was also shown on the car touring maps. Roads had a tendency to run out; and that happened twice today as I was on the home stretch. The first time I walked a km or so through paddocks and found my way. The second time, I ignored a private property sign as it seemed to me the overgrown track was where it was marked on the map. We had a shower of rain, after previously quite hot weather, and this made the undergrowth wet. The track deteriorated even further but I persevered as the option of going back would have added many kms. I could see I was close and so it turned out. So, no more short cuts, unless I'm feeling vaguely confident I will get through!
Inese arrived at 7:20 this morning. We spoke, mainly in Latvian, for about 30 minutes. I hope Inese can make something of it. She can always speak to Anita. I enjoyed talking with her and gave her my card. There should be an article in Latgales Laiks next week.
I then caught a cab to the border. That sounds easy but it had its moments. I showed the driver my map and asked for a quote [as I been instructed to do]. The driver stopped by another cab and consulted a colleague. He also looked at the map. Then he went back to his own cab to get his glasses and had another look. I don't think he could help my driver, as it seemed rather in desperation that he suggested 10 lati (around AUD25). I thought that was more than reasonable and gave him 15 on arrival.
My driver, Dimitri I found out later, had worked in England for a year, so we settled into a chat about what I was doing, his family, etc. It came as quite a shock to find out later he had not understood much at all about my plans.
We stopped at the border. I was surprised that there was quite a large set up. I took Dimitri's photo with the guard house in the background. Soon, two border control officers were outside asking us questions, in Russian. Dimitri seemed to be disavowing all connection with me.
The conversation then turned to my intentions. The Latvian guard picked up quickly that the Lithuanian border was my starting point for a walk across Latvia to the Estonian border. He explained to his colleague and Dimitri. When the penny dropped, Dimitri told me I was 'crazy' and off he drove, also with a business card. Perhaps he will now read this.
Journalist Inese asked me this morning [I think], aren't you worried about criminals? I have been of course, but I didn't need any confirmation of my fears. So far so good. I have not seen too many people – perhaps 50 cars all day, say five bicycles and two girls on a wagon pulled by a horse. Unfortunately, I couldn't get my camera to operate quickly enough; not that they passed very quickly.
I am sharing the cottage with a family, though they haven't come back yet. I think I will try and make my dinner before they do, in case I put them off their food.
And then an early night. I have a worrying sore left heel. Tomorrow is a shorter day although the next will be a marathon [in fact almost 42km].
I am having trouble getting an internet connection. The alternative is to break the e-mail up into a few dozen text messages. I will leave it till after dinner.
Whilst eating dinner [which wasn't too bad], my fellow house guests arrived home – Jana, Olafs and their two boys, Andris and Imants. We have had a very pleasant conversation, mainly in English, which in their case was quite good and better than my Latvian.
They are on holiday, travelling by car, but seem to have also done some serious trekking [carrying boats?] in Siberia. I hope we have a further chance to chat though I have set a 7:30 departure time for the morning to try and avoid what seem to be the inevitable late afternoon showers.
Demene Catholic church, by a lake

The night before I start walking

It is 8:30 and I am sitting down to dinner in the hotel restaurant. It is on the 10th floor and I am looking down Riga Street towards the station where I arrived an hour or so ago. The train was remarkably efficient – it was an express and took 3 hours rather than the 4 hours by car that Ziedonis estimated.

I have just finished my meal; chicken goulash with potato mash, broccoli and grapes! Beautifully presented! I have ordered apple pie, I think. I had a sudden loss of confidence in my Latvian as the waiter did with her English. I know that the next three nights will be bushwalking meals – hot water poured over dried meat and vegetables to produce a gourmet meal; well perhaps at best a sustaining one.
Coming down in the train took my thoughts back to last year – seeing the flattish landscape of pasture broken by regular forests and the typical rural buildings. I am very much looking forward to getting some kilometres behind me.
I have received so many good wishes over the last few days. It is particularly encouraging to read the blog comments after a day of walking, so do try to overcome the technical difficulties involved. Thanks particularly to Sandra and Imants; and Sandra seemed to manage to make her comment whilst driving in Sweden. Would love to see you again – last time was in Dinsberg before Christmas 1991 or 92!, though Matīss was with us for a couple of months earlier this year. He left us a book, ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed’ by Jared Diamond [I just googled it to get the full title]. How can Matīss be a fan of Top Gear after reading a book like that? It is a fantastic though very worrying book.
Imants and I were neighbours, and shared a bathroom, at the Latvian Family Camp (3x3) near Mittagong last summer. His high level IT skills obviously made blog commenting an easy matter. However, I could not exist without my paper maps. I had hours of pleasure planning the walk – trying to find a reasonably direct route but by the most minor tracks or roads possible. Sort of the opposite of where GPS might take you. Actually my mobile office has a GPS function but I have deliberately not activated it.

The apple pie, though exquisitely presented etc., was a mistake tho’ the kilojoules will help tomorrow. I must get to Rimi next door before it closes at 11. I need some packet soups and porridge for the days ahead.
Daugavpils is Latvia's second largest city – over 100,000 people, with a very large proportion of Russian speakers. My first impressions have been positive. The city centre is clean, quiet and attractive, particularly the parkland.
I must send this off to Juris. Anita is dining with Selga and Juris tonight. I will have an early start – I have an interview at 07:30 with a local newspaper; from the ones on offer in the supermarket, I assume it is Latgales Laiks as all the rest seem to be Russian language.
I will try to post a copy of my 'business' card that Anita arranged to have printed today. The first card I have had for at least 20 years. It describes my current occupation very well.
Ar labu nakti!

Preparations

Tomorrow afternoon, I leave by train for Daugavpils (Latvia's second largest city). I will stay the night there and on Wednesday morning catch a taxi to the Lithuanian border where I will commence the walk. The start point will be the most southern point in Latvia and is about 3kms from where the borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus meet. Coincidentally, last year's walk started near the meeting point of the borders of Latvia, Russia and Belarus - one of the most interesting places I visited.

Today, I had three tasks - to test my communications system, to book accomodation and to buy a few items including some food. Anita and I visited Juris Beņķis in Riga this morning. Last year, Juris posted all the blog entries and has agreed to undertake the task again this year. I will write the text on my mobile phone (computer) and email it with photos to Juris who then will do an edit and post it on the blog. Everything worked well in our test run today.

We visited the outdoor gear shop at No 17 Miera Street. We were served by a young guy who had been in Melbourne 15 years ago with a Latvian youth choir. I bought some prepared bushwalking meals for those nights when I will need to self cater. Last year, I went hungry on a few occasions and I found it difficult to keep walking on inadequate food.

This afternoon, Gunta arranged all my accomodation, with about 20 phone calls. Tomorrow night I will stay at the Hotel L in Daugavpils. The starting price was 60 euros for a single room. I was then offered a room with "a wall outside the window" for 20 lati. Gunta then said I was from Australia and suddenly I had a room with a view over the park on the 5th floor.

The accomodation on the walk covers the whole range of possibilities. On the first night of the walk, I will stay in a house on a 'lake island'. It certainly sounds exotic. Gunta negotiated my breakfasts - porridge and eggs, rather the the usual pork and pork. Each night is fixed, including one night at Gunta's country place near Zaube (the only overlap with last year's east-west walk), and the next night at Cēsis with Juris and Selga. Last year, when we started phoning the accomodation places, we found that a few could not be contacted and I needed to rearrange part of the route.

I have a collection of maps - the smaller scale road maps on which I planned the route in Melbourne a couple of months ago and 15 large scale topographical maps (1:50,000) which I have bought over the last few days. I have tried to avoid all highway walking. There are a few kms on bitumen roads, but very little. There is quite a lot of forest walking and, on the second day I will be following the River Daugava for most of the day.

It has all come together fairly easily. The experience from last year has helped considerably. However, my daily distances are very ambitious. Measuring from the larger scale maps, I have found that I had underestimated the distances to a significant degree. Most days will be 2-5 kms longer. The total distance will be more like 380 than 350 kms. That is an average of 34.5 kms each day with one day, from Zaube to Cēsis being about 45-50 kms.

One limiting factor is that I have planned the route so I can walk through Mazsalaca on the last night before reaching the Estonian border, and then returning (hopefully by car) to Mazsalaca the next night as well. Lija is at a European Latvian Summer camp for 2 weeks at Mazsalaca and the night I finish the walk coincides with Lija's last night celebrations at the camp (to which parents are invited). Last year I also visited Lija, at her camp at Līčupe. I was able to make a detour of 20 kms or so from my east-west route to attend the last night celebrations.

I will pack in the morning and buy a little more food. The train leaves at 5pm.

Route Plan

Proposed route

Start: Wed 29 July – Lithuanian border near Navikai
1st night – Sventes ezers (Lake Svente) 30kms
2nd night – Munči, near Dviete - 26kms (56kms)
3rd night - Zasa - 36kms (92kms)
4th night - Jēkabpils - 25kms (117kms)
5th night - Mežezers - 25kms (142kms)
6th night - Ērgļi - 31kms (173kms)
7th night - Zaube - 30kms (203kms)
8th night - Cēsis - 45kms (248kms)
9th night - Kocēni - 28kms (276kms)
10th night - Mazsalaca - 40kms (316kms)
Finish: Sat 8 August - Estonian border near Moisakula - 34kms (350kms).

Walk up Latvia - 2009

This summer, I plan to walk 350kms over 11 days from the southern-most point in Latvia (on the Lithuanian border near Navikai - south of Daugavpils) to the northern-most point in Latvia (on the Estonian border near Moisakula - north of Valmiera). This follows my walk of 750kms over 24 days last summer, starting on 29 July 2008 from the eastern-most point (on the Russian border near Pasiene - south of Zilupe) to the western-most point (on the Baltic Sea at Bernati) and then on to Liepaja where I finished on 21 August 2008. The blog of last year's walk is at http://walkacrosslatvia2008.blogspot.com/.