You’ve seen them all; they are tall and have a light on top. Although a trip around Estonia’s lighthouses would not be without merit. There are lots of them, not surprising given the Estonian western isles are as flat as a pancake. Sky meets the horizon separated by the thinnest sliver of green, invisible at night.
The view from the top of Kõpu tuletorn – fire tower – in western Hiiumaa is spectacular in its own way. Vast expanses of pine and spruce forest, the odd building here and there, vistas out to 20 kilometres.
Building at this lighthouse started in 1531, the work of Hanseatic merchants bent on preventing further shipwrecks, which, history tell us, were frequent and catastrophic. As the Estonian terminology suggests, the lighting came from a fire at a height, which the keeper and his family kept going all night. It would have been an arduous chore during the long winter nights, though at least a warm one.
Estonia is naturally short on coal, its Palaeozoic geology stopping short of the Carboniferous period; firewood, therefore, in high demand and plenty of it to be had. Again, the view from lighthouses, and the various viewing towers we visited reminds me of how sparsely populated Estonia is. A good thing from a forestry point of view, and it does give the country a special appeal.
At the northwestern tip of Saaremaa on a rainy day, we viewed a derelict lighthouse, a mini leaning tower of Pisa, out in the waves, coastal erosion having separated it from terra firma. Kiipsaare was a forlorn scene of sand and grass; we turned the bikes and headed south in a stiff head wind, wet but not cold, hoping for a café.
At a mini-mart in Kihelkonna, we met an older man who was keen to chat, in Estonian, and who had a surprisingly detailed knowledge of Pacific Island geography.
Lunch was had at Lümmanda, at the Punane Söögimaja – the red eating house – vegatable soup for me, and a “pan bread” for Greg; we shared a gloopy but filling potato salad, washed down with weak coffee.
We battled down the road arriving at the coast at Salme, our grandmother’s middle name, the site of a pre-Viking massacre by the Estonian islanders of unlucky Scandinavian invaders, and nothing to see of it, other than a well-presented park bench arrangement in the shape of a large rowboat.
At this point of our journey, we were at a loss as to where to camp. The strange thing about travelling, especially when under one’s own steam, is that something always turns up, and so it proved.
We cycled east on footpaths, and arrived at an ecological site, a grove of sacred, though stunted oak trees, hundreds of years old, and struck our tent in a nearby forested meadow, out of sight of anyone; the rain stopped and the sun shone.
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