Blog #0004 May 4 2022 – Along the northern Coast of Estonia

Day 3 of my cycling trip:

Sometimes cycling becomes easy, even if the circumstances are not. Again, battling headwinds on the Estonian northern coast I made my way from Meremoise, where I had my lovely camp/spot in the dunes towards Laulasmaa and Padise. It was again windy with gusts reaching up to 60 km/h (that’s approximately 35 miles/h for the imperial measurement guys). A slight ray of hope had been the fact that the wind had shifted a little towards northwest and consequently didn’t blow straight into my face any more. This, however, made steering not very easy in particularly when you were hit by a strong gale from the side and consequently veered off into the middle of the road. Fortunately, traffic in Estonia is very low, which makes for relaxing cycling. The environment does its thing to contribute to this relaxation. The countryside is dominated by pastures and fields and the occasional forest. Spring appears to be much further progressed than in Finland. The ditches and the fields are “littered” with spring flowers in their finest. Lots of pennywart (Anemone hepatica), the favourite spring flower of mine, is growing here. When cycling this early in spring one can almost see in a time warp how the vegetation changes. I believe that one of the most eye-opening ways to experience spring and its impact on flora and fauna is to make a bicycle tour during this time.

Passing Padise, I visited the Padise monastery, which also served as a fortress once the monks were disposed of. It is quite an impressive building. A small manor house with a lovely lake added to the peaceful ambiance of that place. But despite this nice visit, hard decisions had to be made: do I cycle to the north to Cap Põõsaspea as intended and battling challenging headwinds or am I turning south to Haapsalu the gateway town to the isle of Hiiumaa, which was on my list? Since I am the ultimate adjustable (speak= lazy) person, I decided immediately to go to Haapsalu and find a place to put up my tent there. Sadly, I didn’t find a suitable camping-spot and decided to go further and take the ferry to Hiiumaa, where I knew a perfect comping site was very close to the ferry landing. Outside Haapsalu is a castle, either in ruins or not completed, which is quite impressive.

At 20:00 h I made it from the ferry and cycled the 3 km to the RMK campground, which was guarded by a German WWII bunker. I had clocked 100 km, the first “century” of my trip. I put up my tent, made a fire in the fire pit and went to bed feeling quite safe, knowing that the campground is protected by a bunker.