Day 3 - Incukalns to Kegums 49.5km 7hrs 30mins

On Day 3 I was to walk only about 38km to Ogre to meet Anita and Lija in time to make it to Raimond's and Agnese's wedding at 2pm. My plans changed dramatically. Firstly, because I was making such good time, I started thinking about finishing the day at Kegums rather than at Ogre. Also, Anita phoned me and told me that the wedding reception would in fact be held close to Riga and not near Ogre where the wedding would be. Anita and I had a number of telephone calls as I was walking alongside a busy highway, which made things difficult with traffic rushing past a metre or so away. Ultimately, I decided that I would go to the wedding in Ogre but would not go to the reception. This turned out to be a very good decision.

However, my decision to walk on to Kegums created some problems. Anita after checking on the internet found that there was a train back to Ogre at 12:59pm. I thought I had just enough time travel the extra 10km and to catch the train. However I had not taken into account the fact that I had left in the morning at 5:38 and not 5:30, which had been my intention. Those 8 minutes proved pretty critical. I had earlier run part of the way to make up time but after I left Ogre I realized I might have problems. The road is a main highway and there was very little space to walk - about a one metre wide verge which consisted of loose gravel including some large rocks. These were difficult to walk on and worse to run on. The 10km to Kegums was more like 11 or 12 and I probably ran half of it.

I had 3 minutes to spare when I made it to the station. I had time to buy a ticket (about 70c for 3 stops), and a bottle of drink and a couple of bananas at the shop next door. By this time, the train was pulling into the station. I ran behind it and up the platform and jumped on the last carriage. It was 12 minutes back to Ogre. I went to the motel which I had passed earlier, and checked in. Originally, Anita and Lija were going to stay as well and there seemed to be a problem with the reservation and the hostess's preferred language was Russian.

First, she showed me the 3 person room and then after a couple of minutes, took me upstairs and showed me the 1 person room, which I decided to stay in. As it turned out, the main business of the motel was as a

Ogre station (next morning at 5:47am)

bar (almost immediately under my room) which remained open all night. It felt like I was in the middle of a party every time I woke during the night (which because of my exhaustion was not for long or very often). When I checked out of the motel at 5:30 next morning, there were still a number of customers at the bar. (I caught the train to Kegums at 5:47am to start the walk on the final day at 6am).

I did make it to the wedding. Zane and Karlis Gross had driven Anita and Lija from Riga and detoured to pick me up at the motel. I had just enough time to shower and wait with a towel around me for Anita and Lija to bring me my change of clothes. No time to shave, though I thought my three days growth of beard gave me a modern Latvian look. Probably it just made me look even more scruffy. I did however participate in some of the wedding photos. Zana knew Raimonds (the groom) from music school and from playing violin in orchestras and other groups with him. Zana also played in the Brandenberg Orchestra when she and Karlis were living in Australia.

The wedding was in the Ogre Lutheran church. Apart from Zane and Karlis, we knew Agita Ikauniece, one of the two guest conductors from Latvia at the cultural festival in Melbourne, and Janis Stafeckis and Arturs Noviks who were also (with Raimonds and Romans Vendins) members of the group Tango Sin Quinto which provided the music for the choir concert and the New Year’s Eve ball at the Festival.

Lutheran church at Ogre (wedding car in front)

The wedding was very formal and in Latvian. An interesting experience and good to catch up with the people we knew. Afterwards, I was driven back to the motel where I changed out of my “formal” clothes and back into my walking gear. Anita and Lija drove off with Zane and Karlis to the wedding reception. I found a Kafejnica and had a huge meal (it was about 5pm) and bought a hardcore breakfast for the next day – a tin of sprots (Latvian sardines – full of protein), black rye bread, a tomato, water, a fruit drink and a couple of bananas.

I was eating breakfast next morning at about 7:30am – 6 or 7km out of Kegums in the middle of the forest – when Anita phoned. I might have a degree of endurance but Anita has real stamina. Gunta had picked Lija up from the reception (at Raimond’s sister’s place near Riga early in the evening and Zane and Karlis had left a few hours later. The party continued into the next morning. In fact Janis Stafeckis said it might go for some days, but I think he was joking. If I had gone to the reception I would have been asleep long before we reached Riga.

Ruins at Ropazi (perhaps a castle)

As for Day 3 of the walk, it was dominated by the arrangements for me to walk on to Kegums and still being able to get back and clean in time for the wedding. The day started sunny at 5:30am but became overcast and very cold before the sun came back out, when I certainly needed the sunscreen. I walked on fairly main (bitumen) roads although the verges were flat and easy on the feet and the traffic was minimal (at first). Later, after Tinuzi, during Anita’s phone calls, the traffic became manic. The landscape was largely cultivated forest and farmland – usually grain crops. The only township I passed through which had a shop was Ropazi.

The mighty Gauja River (before Ogre)

About 7km before Ogre, I crossed the Gauja (one of Latvia’s two largest rivers – the other, the Daugava, I crossed at Kegums the next day). Just off the road there was a development with restaurants and bars, and a few ski slopes with ski tows carrying tourists a hundred metres or so to the top of the hill. Latvia is not Switzerland, although at Jani (Latvia’s midsummer celebration), we spent the night about 3km from Latvia’s highest mountain, Gaizinkalns (312 metres).