Estonia’s national stone is limestone, although as quarry men will tell you, most countries prize their calcium carbonate. Fair enough but paekivi goes a long way in Estonia, literally so, in lining stretches of the northern coastline in high cliffs.
This is the Baltic klint, a strange landform for a country that is so flat. It extends westwards under the sea to surface again at the Swedish island of Öland. We cycled along part of it one morning west of Tallinn, travelling from one beach campsite to another, heading towards the northwestern tip of the mainland where Swedish settlers once lived.
No fencing anywhere; you could easily walk over the top by mistake, and take a trip to the sea below, through 50 million years of geological time on the way down. Fun for a geologist, but short lived. From the Ordovician period into the Cambrian, a time older than fishes, let alone dinosaurs, more than 400 million years before present.
This is where Estonia is so different to Finland and its crystalline rocks that originated in a much earlier time. No iron ore to speak of in Estonia, instead, sedimentary rocks that gradually become younger at the surface when travelling south because the strata are not quite flat, but at a slight angle to the horizontal.
Estonia’s geological map looks much like the national flag, three bands, from the top, Ordovician, Silurian, and in southern Estonia, the red sandstone characteristic of the Devonian period, the Age of Fishes, not just here, in much of the world.
Fascinating for me as a former rock student; the earth’s history can be read in strata, although as geologists will tell you, it is a book with most of the pages ripped out, nature almost as likely to erase the story, as to create it.
Arriving from the island of Hiiumaa on the ferry to Saaremaa, we arrive also in Silurian limestone, riding to the panga pank, the “bank of banks”. From the highest point, 21 metres above sea level, the ancients launched human sacrifices. Today vodka bottles are propelled over the edge, to assure a good catch of fish.
The cliff of cliffs, Saaremaa, from the Visit Estonia website
Saaremaa rock is much tougher than its northern Estonian counterpart. The floors of traditional farmhouses are made of it, flaggy, and easily split into pavers.
It is Monday, which means all cafes are closed, so I am unable to charge my phone. Greg takes pictures of this pleasant stop amid freshly cut lawns, the ever-present wooden swing, and a sundial on a limestone plinth that actually works.
We head off in hot weather on a sealed road with almost no vehicles travelling on it, an easy journey arriving at Mustjala, a few houses, where we reprovision, and wonder how to charge our phones. Joy of joys, we picnic at a soundshell that has electric sockets for the sound equipment.
We fill our water bottles at a well, a rough hole driven into flaggy limestone with a cover on it to stop insects. A long pole attached to a pivot with a galvanised metal bucket at one end makes for easy dipping, filling and lifting. A passerby asks our business, and says the water is very good, and to help ourselves.
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