Raudsilla to Ādaži

Baltic Sea Circle Day 12

Radsilla to Adazi

We woke up rather exhausted after our late night and the loud music, but keen to get back on the road and head to the challenge of the day: we needed to visit an old Estonian prison, located in a quary which was now flooded. We had to take a swim in the lake to get our 20 points. 

After packing up the tent, eating a quick breakfast and brushing our teeth, we considered visiting the toilets of doom but decided against it; they were probably full from the 250 other people that had used them over the last 12 hours! We turned the key and the engine roared to life, waking any campers who were still asleep, some sweet revenge for keeping us up in the night. A few not so gentle revs later, to make sure everyone really was awake, and we rolled back down the gravel track to the highway. We stopped at the first petrol station to refuel and visit the toilets there (much better) and pick up some cold drinks. The former prison was only an hour away and we skirted around Tallinn, sticking to the speed limits as there were reports of sped traps and police on the roads. 

We found the location and rolled into the car park, where the barbed wire and tall walls remained. I got my swimming shorts out and decided changing in the car would be ideal. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a 944 but there is not a lot of room to undress and pull swimming shorts on, especially in the drivers seat when you’re over 6 feet tall! Gemma was in stitches. We walked the 20 meters up the gravel track and paid the girl at the kiosk the €5 each to get in and she said we can drive our car a bit further in, so we returned and navigated the car down the track; it was only after the kiosk that we found the potholes and mud, which made for a bit of teeth-clenched driving as we tried to dodge the deepest of them. One of our fellow rally teams had arrived in their Suzuki Jimny and zoomed over the bumps and left us in a cloud of dust!

We parked up and made our way down to the lake, surrounded by the ruins of the prison which was quite eerie! Parts of the prison complex were above the water, covered In graffiti art and some was half submerged by the clear water. It was only once we were down there we saw the changing rooms, all that struggle for nothing!! We made our way to the waters edge and tested the water. It was a very hot day and the cool water was amazing. I waded in after taking off my shoes (I later regretted not wearing my flip flops) and took some photos with the GoPro. The silty lake bottom was slippery in places and i went for a bit of a swim. Points achieved; we got changed in the changing room and headed back to the car to tackle the potholes again on the return up the track. 

We next planned to head a couple of hours south along the Estonian coast and once we were past Pärnu we stopped at a long beach to have some lunch: our good old Peanut butter and Jam sandwiches and a few biscuits, and an orange. People were enjoying the hot day and shallow waters which were pretty warm. As we say on the beach we planned the next few days and before we got too sunburned headed back to the car. The Porsche had been flawless over the last 11 days, apart from the plastic around the gear lever breaking, but as I turned the ignition it sounded like the battery was flat.  Another try and the car came to life, strange! Since the journey started we’d been keeping a careful eye on our battery voltage via the USB charger I had installed, and the coolant temperature which I’ve always worried about since the car broke down 5 years ago. Hopefully this was not a sign of things to come!

We crossed the border into Latvia, where the overtaking got even worse and more scary. People pulling in right in front when there is something coming the other way. Our plan was to head to a campsite near Riga, the capital of Latvia, and stay there. We’d found one on our trusty app and the reviews were good. We hit a large traffic jam, which held us up on the E67, where a 4×4 had crashed at a junction. After clearing that we had a clear road until we turned off for our campsite, where the road quickly became a patchwork of pothole repairs and humps, juddering the 35 year old suspension and making us grip onto the steering wheel and anything else, as if we could hold the car together. The road got even worse and eventually became a gravel track littered with huge potholes, and we were aware that we were on the edge of a military base! The reviews on the app had mentioned something about that. As we passed the entrance to the base the armed guards looked at us with a confused expression, and a minute later an armoured truck was behind us which we though might pull us over and check who we were. As we proceeded with care, constantly checking mirrors as well as scanning the road ahead the road turned to tarmac again and the truck pulled off behind us. Our relief was short lived however as the tarmac ended and returned to fine gravel for the last few kilometres to the campsite. At last we pulled in, sweaty and shaking from the course roads and summer heat. The Latvian campsite owner spoke some English and we paid our bill for the night and settled in. Once our tent was up and airing we wondered around and saw a sign for the river, so followed that as it wound through some woodland. Once there we found the wide river, and a whole bunch of mosquitoes which followed us as we escaped as fast as we could, being bitten the whole way. We refreshed our insect repellent as soon as we got to the car and examined our injuries, be both had about 20 or 30 new bites already coming up and applied some bite cream to those too. 

Dinner was next, and while Gemma took a shower I prepared some risotto which was ready in no time, and we ate as much as we needed. I has a shower while Gem washed up and then we reapplied the insect repellent and bite cream! 

We planned our route for tomorrow’s adventure. We’d decided to visit Riga in the morning and then try to get to Poland by the evening, to give us a good chance of getting to Hamburg by 5pm on Monday. We went to bed early, catching up on lost sleep from the previous night.