I was barely out of Pärnu on the first morning when it happened. I’d stopped to listen to the reed warblers in a broad belt of roadside wetland. Down at my feet were four types of orchid, and cuckoos were calling. It was the beginning of my trip: I didn’t know that I would be seeing and hearing those things continuously for the next week. But this was no nature reserve, simply an ordinary Estonian country lane, close to the coast and the Lithuanian border.
I got back on the bike and pushed hard to get the pedals moving. I was carrying two heavily laden panniers. That was when the deer, crouched in a ditch a few feet away, decided that concealment was over. It sprang out, eyes wide open, its coat a deep chestnut brown, and leaped. It went over the front wheel, then over the opposite ditch, then over the fence beyond and into a clump of foxgloves, a miraculous Bob Beamon triple jump. The deer’s sudden movement triggered two enormous grey birds, cranes, to start charging across a distant meadow, rising up in the air with great echoing whoops of alarm. Their panic spread to seven herons that launched out of a distant tree. I knew then that my Estonian summer bike ride was going to be special.
I’d travelled by train from London to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, then took the bus through Latvia to the Estonian city of Pärnu, a holiday favourite for locals, with its elegant spa hotels and long sandy beach. My rental bike was waiting. I set off, using the excellent LVM Geo mapping app to guide me. The deer jumped. I ignored the popular local proverb, ära hõiska enne õhtut (don’t rejoice before evening), and entered a state of bliss.
The route dinked in and out of forests, cruising along beside reed beds, then digressed to coastal points. Every now and again there was a wooden summer house, painted golden, some thatched, always with a neat flower garden. I toyed with the idea of keeping going for months and cycling around the coastline of the Baltic in its entirety. In Estonia much of the forest is state-owned and the forestry organisation, RMK, provides cabins (some free of charge) and camping areas.
My first night is in a wooden chalet by a small lake. The owner, Frank, comes over and offers to show me a bike route through the forest to a nearby restaurant. We eat together outside, storks flying overhead. Back at the cabin, I swim in the lake, keeping an eye out for snakes and beavers. In the morning, the woodpile, bathed in sunshine, is draped with sun-worshipping grass snakes. In ancient times the Baltic peoples venerated these harmless water-lovers, believing they were protective domestic spirits and each house should have one. That reverence lingers on.
At the small port of Virtsu I take the ferry across to Muhu. My route is a mere 37 miles around this island, but I’m in no hurry, stopping repeatedly to swim. I stay in Pädaste, a converted manor house, and then Muhu Namaste, a thatched longhouse where elk occasionally plod through the vegetable garden at night. The island, and its larger neighbour Saaremaa, were restricted zones during Soviet times. Under Stalin, fishermen had to apply for permission to launch a boat, documents were needed, people deported to Siberia on flimsy pretexts. Long before that the islands had been outposts for Viking and Swedish settlements. In 2008 the remains of two eighth-century Viking longships turned up on Saaremaa when workmen building a cycle path pulled an ancient sword from the ground.
I dawdle along forest lanes, glimpsing a goshawk, its shadow flitting across the sunlit pines. A squadron of dragonflies is always around me. I spend one afternoon sampling wine with Peke Eloranta whose Luscher & Matiesen vineyard is one of the most northerly in the world, on the same latitude as John O’Groats. At Simiste I watch an Arctic tern colony on a small islet, then dive in and swim out past them.
Back on the mainland I head north, stopping to look at elk tracks along a beach. There are beavers and otters here too. And there, sitting on a patch of wild thyme, it hits me. I’ve time-travelled. I’m in Britain five centuries ago: before hunting rifles and herbicides, before motorways and privatised water, before huge chicken farms and robotic dairy production. As if to rub the point home, a hen harrier comes over, disturbing all the ground-nesting redshanks without a thought of getting shot by some neo-feudalist’s henchman.
This area of the coast, Matsalu, is a globally significant area for birds, home to thousands of migrating species in spring and autumn. I sleep in a forest treehouse, totally alone, listening to the boom of bitterns long into the white night of midsummer.
Next day I head east, taking a car to save a few days’ riding. In the forests close to Alutaguse national park and the Russian border I rendezvous with Bert Rähni, a wildlife guide. We hike along forest trails and immediately spot bear tracks.
“In the 1920s there were about 20 bears left in Estonia,” he tells me, “But numbers have steadily risen to over 1,000 – about half in Alutaguse.”
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“Does anyone get attacked?” I ask.
“It’s extremely rare,” he says. “We cull 5% annually and that keeps the animals frightened of humans.”
This sensible management plan has resulted in the country having one of the highest concentrations of bears in the European Union, with the lowest conflict rates. Britain’s bears, incidentally, disappeared more than a thousand years ago.
That night we leave the car and bikes at the end of a road deep inside the forest, then hike to a small clearing. Here Bert and his team have built a pair of hides, two cabins with double-glazed windows on both sides that are designed to reduce any chance of the animals getting wind of humans. We take up stations on either side, scanning the forest shadows for movement. Wolves, lynx, brown bear, elk and the nocturnal Siberian flying squirrel are all here, but for now all I see is dozy wood pigeons. The shadows deepen. Then Bert calls me over. A terrier-sized animal appears. “Raccoon dog.”
It’s a species brought over from Siberia during Soviet times, more closely related to the fox than the North American raccoon. No sooner has this non-native snuffled away into the shadows than a true local turns up: a wild boar that spends a happy hour grubbing up insects in the boggy areas. Then finally, just as night falls under the trees, Bert points to a movement in the bushes. I focus the binoculars and there’s a huge brown face looking directly at me. The bear shambles forward and rips at a fallen log.
“It’s a female,” whispers Bert. “Maybe three years old.”
May and June are the best months for bear-watching as the animals have just woken from hibernation and are highly active. We watch her for a few minutes, then with a sudden bound, she’s gone. In the morning, down the track, I find the huge prints of a big male. Back on my bike I ride away, happy to have spent a small slice of summer in my ancient past.
The writer was a guest of Visit Estonia, travelling to the Baltic states by rail. A four-day adult Eurail pass costs £245 (under-28s £183, over-60s £220) . City Bike in Tallinn hires out touring bikes from £7.60 a day and offers a drop-off/pickup service. Two 20-litre panniers are £2.50 a day. Child trailers are available. NaTourEst bear watching nights in the hide from £105
The final instalment of Kevin Rushby’s Baltic coastal adventure will be published on 18 July