Back to Mainland Estonia
And also back to Latvia
14th August - 17th August | 2022
In the morning I started a bit offroad, but I decided I go directly to the ferry. Perfect timing as 10mins later was already departure. They squeezed my bike and 2 Harley Davidson right at the end of the ferry. During the 30mins drive, I marked where I am going to hit the TET again. When I came to the area, I drove the wrong way into the TET and found myself nearly at the harbour! Great, well done Steffi! As I needed petrol I went directly to Lihula. Once I topped up the bike, I decided to go directly to the Biker Hotel Aleksandri Pub & Guesthouse (www.aleksandripub.ee).
I was very tired, as not much sleep last night. Once I checked into my room (thank you for sorting that out Alo!), I crashed on the bed for nearly 2 hours!
After a nice shower, the girl from the reception helped me with the picture for the USA B2 Visa, as today was the last day to send the current application in. So fingers crossed that I will get soon an interview date to hopefully move a step forward!
Angelo is also in town today, so we met for dinner. As Sunday and with really good weather, everywhere was jam-packed, but we finally found a nice restaurant with an outside terrace to have some pizza. We again had a really nice conversation. Even though he does also the coast on his bicycle, I will not catch him again ;-)
After dinner, I basically crashed on the bed and slept like a log all night!
The next morning I took it easy and went doing my laundry and cleaning Schimmelchen after the 3 ferry crossings. The rest of the day I was a bit lazy.
Early evening Alo (remember, the last evening in Poland I met him) joined me for dinner at their Pub. The portions were massive and very delicious. We shared the dessert "pancake a la Alo", and I highly can recommend it!
The next morning, it was time to say goodbye again to Alo and hit the TET again.
I followed the TET Estonia direction border of Latvia. I did a slight mistake, but I could see it will get back to the TET. Damn, that was a sandy, bumpy and sandier track! I already could see the end on my screen, when I had to go through a really rough sand patch. My poor throttle and back tyre, but the aim was not to dig it in! Done, but then I must have done a wrong movement and the bike was down :-( Great, so workout for the day in 30C!!
The rest of the day, I went on and off the TET, depending on what the track looked like to me. Today was a lot of different variations of sand: sandy gravel roads with sand patches, parts of deeper rutted sand, easy-going sand tracks, etc. and all in 30C! Coming closer to the area of Cesis I decided I need a hotel room and not pitching up my tent. I was pretty shattered by all the above.
The next morning I was a bit lacking motivation, but once I pulled myself together, it was actually a nice ride. Nice forest tracks, not too sandy and not too dusty as some raindrops came down. I mainly followed the TET, but sometimes I straightened the route. This track includes a lovely old-fashioned ferry crossing over one of the longest rivers, Gauja.
At some point, the TET went into a bumpy track, but it was still "a forest road", so I gave it a try. It got better, and then it got worse, as a mixture of mud and sand, rutted by forest lorries. I really had to keep my momentum to stay in one of the tyre tracks, but of course, sometimes with the loose sand, I had to wade it. My poor clutch! I came to the end of the track, and I could see that the next part of the track, was getting even worse; well, what I could see: deeply rutted sand! So I turned around and battled my way back to the main road. After that "I called it a day" and just drove the last 30km main road into Riga.
The hotel in Riga offered free parking, but that is basically public parking right in front of the main road, or in the quiet backyard without any security. Hmmm, I opted for the busy front; fingers crossed! Later on, it was time to find some food, as didn’t have had anything since breakfast, not even a cafe stop today!
Tomorrow it will be sightseeing in Riga. Let´s see where I would rank it between the other two Baltic capitals. If you are also curious about it, watch out for the next blog soon.
In the meantime in the Algarve, Portugal, James started to construct the base for the bathroom of the MotoCamp Algarve!
Places | Cities:
ESTONIA:
Lihula, Pärnu, Staicele.
LATVIA:
Limbazi, Stelbe, Cesis, Priekuli, Kalli, Gaujas, Riga.
Driven km | Trip:
Total | Steffi: 22700 km
Maintenance | Breakdown:
./.
Health issues:
./.
Special thanks to:
Alo and Aleksandri Pub & Guesthouse (www.aleksandripub.ee) in Pärnu for looking after me and my Schimmelchen.
TET Estonia (www.transeurotrail.org) being very challenging (sand!)