From the highway roads lead to small fishing villages, usually with a sign for a campsite. We chose one and wound up in the village of Poltrigs. The campsite (kempings in Latvian) was in a farmer's pasture, next to his house. When we showed up he got his daughter who spoke good English, and she showed us around. There was an outhouse (with electric lights!), a hot shower, and an electric kettle for us to boil water in. There were also two cabins.
The people who live here are Livs, a minority related to the Finns who are fighting to keep their culture alive. Our host had constructed a fence showing the variety of traditional fences. It reminded me of Cariboo ranch fences.
From the campsite it was a short walk past old wooden houses, through lovely mixed forest, to a boardwalk constructed with European Economic Community funding over the dunes to the beach.
We visited Cape Kolka at the tip of the Peninsula where the Gulf of Riga meets the Irbe Strait,
Irbe Strait water (rough) meets Gulf of Riga water (smooth)
and checked out the Slitere Lighthouse, located miles from the shore in the Blue Hills, high enough to be seen for many miles.
The lighthouse was closed, but there was a nature trail that descended down from the hill into unique forest and boglands.
Interestingly, Slitere National Park was originally created to protect this unique ecosystem and English Ivy, which normally does not grow this far north and is considered to have been a refugium from the iceage.
We did not see ivy but we did find cranberries (protected, no picking!) In the bog.
Strange animal of the day: A slow worm, or legless lizard
which we thought was a snake with its tail broken off till we learned better. It sat perfectly still, thus the name slow worm? According to Wikipedia " In the days leading up to birth, the female can often be seen basking in the sun on a warm road," and that's exactly how we found it.
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