My Estonian friend looks at me. “Where did you say you were going?”
“Kuremäe.”
“Never heard of it.”
Somehow I’ve planned a trip to somewhere that even Estonians haven’t heard of.
It started with the Baltic Forest Trail. The Forest Trail begins at the Polish-Lithuanian border and ends in Tallinn: a 2,141-kilometer trek. The site says you would be walking for at least 102 days and probably about 114 days, presuming that you walk every day and manage around 20 kilometers a day.
I am not that crazy.
The Estonian section, 720 kilometers, is expected to take over a month and again, that’s at a full-speed pace without distractions or explorations or getting lost.
I am clearly not the target audience for this. I can barely stay on a marked trail for more than five minutes. Once, Cliff had to come rescue me from a small forest half the size of Gatwick Airport.
However, the Baltic Trails website is amazing. Each section of the Forest Trail is described in detail, including public transport connections, where they exist. Estonians tend to presume that anyone who dares to leave Tallinn has a car, so this is a fantastic resource. Closest to me is the final section of the trail: “North Estonian Coastline”. This section alone is 344 km and so, overwhelmed with possibilities, I started by investigating the area in this section which was furthest from Tallinn.
Day 34 is a 16-km walk starting in Kuremäe. The village of Kuremäe boasts 273 inhabitants, a 19th century convent, and something that Google translates as a dwarf cemetery and Wikipedia tells me is a type of zombie or revenant; a being which walks again after dying.
Kuremäe is looking more interesting by the minute.
The bus from Tallinn to Kuremäe takes three and a half hours. The bigger problem is that the bus only runs twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, arriving in the evening. That same bus does not stop at Kuremäe on its way back to Tallinn. I can get there, but I can’t get back.
There is one place to stay, the Kuremäe Apothecary Coffee and Hostel. But, even if I traveled to the closest bus stop, I wouldn’t be able to get home sensibly until the end of the week, which seems a long time to spend surrounded by nuns and Zombie Dwarves.
However, the Forest Trail guide assures me that if I have faith and follow the trail north through the Kurtna reserve, I will find accommodation and, eventually, a train station.
Under Services Information, there is a warning that there are no shops until you reach Kurtna and Oru in the middle of the following day. But there are two options for accommodation, the Niinsaare Holiday Center and the Alutaguse Health and Sports Centre.
A plan began to evolve.
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