The rain started at about 6am and I thought it was perfectly bad timing. This is going to be an interesting pack up. I then checked the weather forecast and it wasn’t great either, so I took my time, got out of my sleeping bag and got things organised inside the tent.
By then, the rain had stopped so I dried the tent, arranged some breakfast and found a dry bench under a tree to eat it, and have my coffee (that’s another story).
I was feeling pretty good until I checked the sky. It looked like it was going to rain cats and dogs in a few minutes time, so I madly packed up, loaded the bike and … it didn’t rain. It didn’t even drizzle, and ten minutes later, the sun was out.
It was time to go anyway. It’s funny how a little bit of rain affects things. It shouldn’t. The bike and my bags are pretty much waterproof and unless it’s torrential rain, I can get everything on the bike with only the tent being wet. I can put that in a dry bag so nothing is affected. I think the only issue with rain occurs if it’s prolonged or if it’s cold, so I’m more relaxed about it these days.
I went through the nice village of Tuja and along the coastline, past some other camping grounds that I wasn’t aware of, and then I had about five or six kms of corrugations that stretched the width of the road. I felt like I was back in South Australia on the Mawson Trail. It was difficult going. I was only able to ride at about 13 or 14km/hr and two cars passed me doing no more than 20. It was traffic in slow motion. But when I arrived at the highway, I wished I had the corrugations again.
The highway is a complete change. In a way, it’s everything I hate – impatience, selfishness, bullying – it’s just dumb. The cars are going so fast and so close. I didn’t really enjoy the next 20 kms even though the road was a designated Eurovelo – both 10 and 13 !
Luckily everything comes to an end and I turned off the highway onto a quiet road looking for a bakery for lunch.
I didn’t find one, bit I found a great restaurant just before the Estonian border.
After my late lunch, the last 25km were idyllic. The road was often close to the coastline and wound its way through pine forests, was as flat as could be and very quiet.
The campground I’d chosen earlier turned out to be fantastic. Its run by a young guy who has done lots of work in rennovating and building the facilities. I saw it on Google Maps but never saw any of the other campgrounds in this area.
There’s a cooking area, so I went into the village and got the ingredients for a vegie pasta. I made too much but managed to get through it all with ease. Challenge completed.
Later, I spoke with a nice dutch couple (Alice and Paul) who are on a driving holiday, then I got into my tent just as the mozzies were arriving.
