Living in Estonia: Autumn times

For all people North of the tropics, Autumn is best symbolised by the beautiful mix of colours when trees start limiting the nutritional support to their leafs, which turn yellow and red before covering the forest grounds with a soft, colourful carpet. Nevertheless, Autumn comes in different times and feels in different regions. What we get here is far from the long, late Autumn of Western Europe and even further from the pleasant Indian Summer of Québec. Mainly because Estonia is not blessed by the Gulf Stream. 

As I pointed out in a previous post, Autumn can also be characterised by the departure of migrating birds (see The Great Migration). Or, in a less official manner, by the temperature of open air bodies of water, "if you can't swim (without wetsuit) without being frozen to death, summer is over"! In Estonia, Autumn starts somewhere in August (this year was fairly good, and it came rather towards the end of the month) and the magic colours of the trees can be enjoyed at their best early October, until the cold wind washes all leafs away. Today, First of November, there is no leaf left on trees in Tallinn. But if you head to forests and bogs inner land, you can still enjoy great colours. 

Inventing fire in Valgejärve 

Around Valgejärve, which means the white lake, you find a large variety of landscapes, ranging from a bog that does not look like others to hilly forests. A bog is usually characterised by a very poor ecosystem (very few nutrients and species) and it is the case here too. On the other hand, this bog has a lot of grassland that is unusual. 

How to light a barbecue when nobody has brought a lighter nor matches (and there is no sun)

Mid-October, we join a few colleagues of Katri for a walk in Valgejärve. What made the episode interesting is a small misunderstanding. As in all RMK sites, there is a barbecue spot, and here there is even a big tipi of the Indian American style that fits over 10 people. We expected to share a barbecue with the group and brought sausages to grill. Something felt odd when we noticed that everyone had brought sandwiches except us, and no one had matches or a lighter to make fire... In a group of Estonians going to the woods, it is really bad luck not to have anyone with the needed stuff to make fire. On the other hand, it would be even more bad luck not to have anyone with the skills to make fire out of the environment. So we received a demonstration of a few ways to make fire... Unfortunately, there was no sunshine and no silex stone, so any attempt - even the most sophisticated - failed.

Some more species for my mushroom in the nature collection

Wet feet in Kakerdaja  

The forest of Kakerdaja offers a nice forest to walk and has a huge with a nice boardwalk of 3,5 kilometres across of it. 

First weekend of November. Close to the seaside, trees are already naked and the leafs in town have been removed during the last week (for the record, I saw the removal team operating on a pitch dark kids playground at 21:00 on Thursday night... another anachronism, from my Belgian perspective). In the inner forest grounds of Kõrvamaa, colours are still plentiful.

Despite the temperatures close to 0°C, the sunshine has invited many people to this beautiful bog.  People are all warmly dressed, with hats and gloves, nature lovers and enjoying the beautiful day. What actually differentiates them quite a bit is their footwear... and in this particular case, it matters. Part of the boardwalk, especially around the main lake, is damaged and has sunk under water. So, there is a high risk of getting wet (and water is of course not warm). It is true, most boardwalks are accessible to light shoes, even flip-flops or barefoot, as they are flat and comfortable. Here, some stretches were sinking so that you would have water up to the ankles. We had hiking boots - not high enough for the worst parts, so we had to circle in the bogs, took some risk but managed to stay dry. The lucky ones had rubber boots. The unprepared ones were with sport shoes. The silly ones where in sneakers... Board walks are popular and require regular maintenance. Moreover, it happens in some places (it was the case once in South Estonia) that beavers create dams in some places that raise the water level around. Plenty of things can make a simple walk much more exciting than expected... 

Only disappointment of the day: we had hopes to find cranberries in the bog. Nothing. Too many passers-by on the main path and it was too wet to leave it to access remote places. 

All wet in Jussi lakes

The next day was also wet, but in a different way. No sun today, only rain. We decide to explore another side of Körvamaa: the RMK trail around Jussi lakes. It is a very nice walk with a lot of variety, hills with heather, forests, lakes, and a bit of boardwalks around the lakes. A place to visit again with nicer weather...

Finally, I could find some clear evidence of beaver activities. Many trees around the long lake were bitten and beaver teeth traces were obvious. Beavers use these trees to build dams behind which they live.

Trees bitten by beavers around the Jussi lake

  

Living in Estonia: Dark nights and winter mood

Winter is dark. Mid November, it is already dark by 4 PM. And it gets worse everyday until the end of the year. And even when days start becoming longer again, the temperatures are still dropping and the spring is still far away. Estonians know winter can be dark and cold, and so they have recipes to cheer your life. 

Major winter events in Tallinn are the Dark Nights Film Festival, in November, the Christmas Market on the main square of the old town, and the Tartu Marathon, a 65 km long cross-country skiing race, happening mid-February. The start of this race is given at the Tehvandi stadium, where I had the honour of trying skiing for the first time.  

In between, people spend time as they can, planning the next sunny holidays or enjoying home and family. 

Kitchen pleasures

Certainly one of the main winter highlight of locals and foreigners in Estonia is the creativity they deliver in the kitchen. Around Christmas, it is very common to make gingerbreads, called Piparkook here. And any other stuff you are into during the dark weekends. 

Piparkook (gingerbreads)

Cinnamon rolls

Macarons "de Tallinn"

Do you have your reflector?

Street lighting in Tallinn is just sufficient to walk without bumping into poles. But it is not sufficient to make pedestrians visible to cars. So it is in the law that every pedestrian (and cyclists too, but that is obvious) must always have reflectors when walking outside of daylight hours. Ideally, it should hang from your jacket on your side between the thigh and the knee. There is a very active campaign about it every year when darkness starts to be around. And it is a very easy way to recognise locals from visitor. 

White Christmas in South Estonia

"Let's hope we will have snow for Christmas!" and so it was. Luckily. And somehow unexpectedly. Because until two days before, the weather was rather warm (in our referential, this means: around 2 degrees on the plus side) and rainy. 

Sunset in Pühajärve

Snow is bright ...

We wanted a snowy Christmas badly because we had planned a three-day stay in the Winter Capital of Estonia, Otepää, with the goal of spending most of the time in the open air. The perspective of  spending the short daylight time hiking in the mud was not perfect.

Picnic spot with view on the Pühajärve

"Early" morning sun on the Pühajärve beach

But we were blessed with a lot of fresh snow and that turned it into a beautiful time. Yes, snow is light. Snow means that, with a bit of artificial lighting, you can enjoy open air activities at any time, even long after sunset, which happens at... 15:30! (although you still have reasonable visibility until 16:00 when the terrain is covered with snow).

... fun ...

And snow means a lot of fun: making snowmen, walking in knee-high snow, snow tubing, skating, skiing. It was the first time I tried snow tubing, and I confirm it is a lot of fun. The first time was even scary, because I could not control the direction of my "donut", but the tracks are rather safe and the sides are slightly shaped to keep you inside. 

... but tiring

Another big première for me: cross-country skiing. As a big fan of downhill skiing, I wanted to try cross-country or Nordic skiing for a while. Could not find a better opportunity than this one! Otepää has a skiing stadium with organised tracks as well as tracks connecting villages. Because of the fresh snowfall, we decided to reach for the Tehvandi stadium where the tracks were clear and we would have the "rails" for the classic style. When we arrived, on the morning of 25 December, there were not many people, and that was a good thing, because most skiers around us were really fast! Not surprisingly, they had "Estonia" written on their blouse and Katri recognised an olympic medalist... 

The ring was far from easy, and going uphill seems to require a good deal of technique (and strength) not to slip backwards... or (let us believe so, for our ego) a more accurate waxing of the skis (but I am happy the lady at the rental did it for us anyway - it seems to be a science).

And uphill we go (or try to go) on Tehvandi stadium

Brave man digging a hole in the ice cap of the lake in search for fish

A lot of fresh snow also means that the lake ring of 13 km felt like... 25 km? Walking on deep snow was very pleasant but indeed a bit tough, especially in areas where one could clearly see that we were the first ones to walk there since the last snowfall.

Relaxing is key

Overall a healthy and quiet Christmas. While tradition in my family was to spend long hours at family gatherings, where good food and bubbly wines follow each others for a few days, here we just had the necessary food to fill the gaps left by our activities. Now, not everything was outdoors. We were staying at the Pühajärve spa hotel and had a package allowing us to use the gym and the swimming pool, with sauna, and which included a couple of extras - which we turned into a couple of back and neck massage of 20 minutes. All this was lovely and for once in my life I think I got back from my (short) Christmas holiday in much better health - both physically and mentally!

People skiing on the frozen lake... (every year they report accidents)

Snowy hike in Paunküla

And since we didn't get bored yet with all the snow, we also had a stopover in Paunküla, 45 km South of Tallinn, for another beautiful walk in deep snow.

Enjoying the peace of a frozen lake early in the morning

Never forget your warm drink

Visit of the local lodging

You don't really know what you are walking on