Day 4 - Kegums to Skaistkalne 51km 9hrs 30mins

At about 3:30pm, I walked across the bridge from Skaistkalne into Lithuania. I had travelled by foot 210km in 36hrs over 4 days. As I back into Latvia, I asked a group of young Latvians to take my photo. Dainis insisted that he be included in the photo. The Catholic church is in the background.

With Dainis at Skaistkalne

The church door (1692)

I spent nearly 4 hours in Skaistkalne waiting for  the bus back to Riga. I did go up the hill to inspect the church. It was built in 1692 and is one of Latvia's most notable buildings. Ojars Greste (from Sydney) wrote to tell me that his late wife, Dagnija, had come from Skaistkalne and sent a photo taken from the bridge looking back into Latvia. I took a photo from what must have been almost the same spot, as no doubt many more tourists have done.

On the bridge in Lithuania looking back into Latvia
 

On the bridge

The river at the border (the closer half is in Lithuania)

Skaistkalne has 3 general stores but no eating house. I would have killed for a huge meal. I did finally get one - Anita's spag bol at about 9:30pm when I finally got home. I waited (fairly) patiently for the bus without any real desire to walk any further. I was extremely pleased that I had completed the Ogre-Kegums stretch the previous day. It would have been a hideous way to start the day, though the road would not have been so busy at 5:30am.

Catholic church at Skaistkalne (built 1692)

The priest's house (to the right of where the previous photo was taken)

From Kegums, I crossed the Daugava River - Latvia's longest river is the Gauja although the Daugava continues on into Russia or Belarus. It had been dammed at Kegums and a hydro plant erected in Soviet times. The river is over 1km wide at this point. There are only a handful of crossings of the Daugava, outside the four in Riga, and any cross-country in Latvia must take account of the limited options available. I had been through Kegums in 2008 and I retraced my steps over the next 12km through the forest.

The map reading was a little tricky at times. I took with me 5 pages of maps torn out of the car touring atlas - Latvijas autocelu atlanta. The maps are 1:200,000 scale but are incredibly accurate. For planning purposes, I also bought the relevant 1:50,000 topographical survey maps which are very detailed. There were 6 relevant maps but they were too bulky to carry. I did consult Lija by phone from Ogre to check whether a particular very minor road carried through and was not simply two separate roads that didn't meet. Towards the end of this day's walking that detail saved me at least 5km on the alternate route.

The walking conditions varied. Mostly the roads were unsealed. The forest roads are generally well constructed and very straight. Towards the end, the track I was on deteriorated badly and I doubt whether it would be traffic able in wet weather. It was a sandy dirt road, in places the sand was moist and compacted and a joy to walk on, in other places the track was loose sand and very hard work.

Farmland near Birzgale

Grain or fodder silos on a farm

At Verdini, about 5km from Skaistkalne, I became very excited when I realised that I was close to the Lithuanian border. The border at this point is a river which twists and turns. I could see a line of trees marking the bank. As I walked on the trees became closer and closer until they were about 30m from the road. I considered, and rejected, the option of ending my walk at that point with a quick swim to the centre point of the river. There are in fact many points where the Latvian roads come close to the border but don't actually cross it because of natural barriers.

Lutheran church at Valle where I stopped for lunch

Front of the church

My walk was from a border crossing town on the Estonian border to a border crossing town at the Lithuanian border. I am pretty confident that my route would be about the shortest route by road or track from Estonia to Lithuania. That is why I chose it. Over the last year, I have spent quite a few idle moments on Google Maps working out possible routes. In my wildest dreams, I thought with a support crew and continuous walking, the trip might be completed within 2 days. In fact, the best ultra-marathon runner might do the complete distance within a period of 24 hours.

On my way to Sydney for the North Face 100 event, I started reading Born to Run by an American author, Christopher McDougall, about ultra-marathon runners and the events they participate in - usually over 50 or 100 miles in the harshest conditions imaginable. The author set out to find a tribe of Mexican forest dwellers who had a reputation as runners of incredible distances, which they covered in bare feet. I have seen the Latvian language version in the bookshops in Riga. It is a great read even, or particularly, for "couch" runners. It certainly redefined my thinking of what might be possible. 

I received some strange looks along the way - the reaction from the bar crowd when I checked out of the hotel in Ogre at 5:30am was perhaps the most vocal. I did enjoy it when someone stopped me and asked what I was doing, and whether I was from Anglija (England). On this day, a woman at the shop in Valle and a man collecting firewood at Verdini stopped me for a chat. I usually said I was from Australia and my wife was Latvian and where I had come from that day. Unfortunately, my Latvian is pretty rusty and will probably not get any better unless we spend an extended time here.

In tomorrow's final blog, I will try to answer questions like, what for and what next? It may be a shortish blog.