Day 10 – Friday 30 July 2010

Blāzma to Dundaga 31km; 6 hours 45 minutes Weather fine

I have just finished an interview with Diāna, a journalist with the local newspaper, Dundadznieks. With Latvian as the only vaguely common language, we conversed surprisingly well for about an hour, then I posed for the obligatory photograph, map in hand. I gave Diāna the information I had the necessary vocabulary to talk about, rather than answering her questions.



This morning, I wrote in the guest book and Māra took a photo of me to paste in the book. Last night, she showed me her five guest books (all with photos) and found the pages completed by Australian guests to see if I knew any of them. I didn't.
I took a photo of Māra in her garden, then headed off trying to keep the left and right turns of the directions for Māra's shortcut in my head. It was a good little shortcut and I made it through to the main road.
I had decided not to take up Māra's suggestion to visit the swamp. I wanted to go through the forest on the smaller tracks. 30km of bitumen road would have been very unpleasant. The forest tracks looked tricky on the map, and apart from a short period when I lost confidence that I was going in the right direction, the day went well.
The first part was on a sandy track, churned up by logging trucks but, because of yesterday's rain was firm to walk on. Later the roads were gravel, and from Pāce, bitumen. There seemed to have been a lot of recent logging. I hope appropriate steps are being taken to reinstate the land as it is very wet and boggy and the trees must play an important part.




For the first three hours I didn't see a person, or a car. I had passed one abandoned house, and then about halfway through the forest I came upon another house, with a man working in the garden. Until I reached Pāce, I probably only saw a dozen cars. I didn't mind the solitude and the fine navigation required kept me alert.
I will have a companion tomorrow - Arnis Gross will walk with me to Kolka. Arnis is from Melbourne. He, his wife Daina (one of Anita's good friends) and their 3 children, Laila, Toms and Olivers, have been living in Latvia for about 3 years. Laila is one of Lija's good friends and she and Toms are at the summer high school with Lija and Jāna.
Arnis, Daina and Olivers are on their way from Riga and will stay at the hotel where I am. Arnis is a keen bike rider and fit and although we have often talked about walking or rogaining together, this will be the first time it has actually happened.
Unfortunately, the walk tomorrow may be a bit of a road slog. There are very few roads and tracks in the area to choose from. I am not sure whether this is because during Soviet times this was a restricted area or because the land is naturally flat and wet and there was no point having more than a handful of access roads.
Another problem tomorrow is that we will need to walk at least 35km anyway and we will probably not want to detour too much just to find a quieter road.
For the last third, we will walk beside the beach. Unfortunately, there are a number of small rivers or creeks which flow into the sea. It is not clear therefore whether this will prevent us from walking on the sand for much of the way. Arnis and I need to work it out in the morning.




I had a walk around Dundaga before Diāna arrived. The town has some interesting and attractive buildings, including the pils (castle). The town generally appears to be well maintained. The crocodile statute is said on its base to be a monument Kurzemes vesturei un stipro viru (To Kurzeme's history and strong man).
As the information board outside the castle states: "Crocodile - a memorial sign to the history of Courland and the crocodile hunter, Arvīds Blumentāls who was born in Dundaga and later lived in Australia. He is a prototype for the hero in the film 'Crocodile Dundee' by Paul Hogan".
Moving quickly from film to other art forms, there will be three parts to the visual arts component of the Latvian Arts Festival in December. All will be under the general direction of Anda Banikos. The first part is a portrait competition. The work, in any media, must be of an Australian Latvian. There is a first prize of $1,000 and other prizes. The judges are artist Imants Tillers, photographer Bill Henson and curator Harijs Pilskalns. The entered works will be exhibited during the Festival at Latvian House.
The second part is a retrospective of the work of a group of Latvian artists known as the "Blue Brush group" who were all post-war Latvian migrants who exhibited together in the 1950s, 60s and 70s in Melbourne. The work of the group is noted in most standard histories of Australian art and their exhibitions were reported in both the Latvian and Australian newspapers. Gunārs Jurjāns is the sole surviving member of the group. He is probably best known for the large mural in the foyer of Latvian House.
The exhibition is being organised by Ilze Green and will be fully curated with historical and explanatory material as well as representative examples of the artists' works. The exhibition will be held in the church hall opposite Dickens Street in Brighton Road.
The hall will also house an exhibition of Latvian textile artworks. In the last day or so, Anita has been selecting the 30 works which will be brought to Australia. About 8-12 artists will be represented and all works will be available for purchase. I have seen a CD with photographs of over 100 works from which the final selection was made. There are some absolutely stunning works.
I wanted to mention some of the other Festival events, but I might do that when I am back in Riga - hopefully tomorrow night.