Arrival Day, Wima Rally 2017

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Cheers, hustle and bustle, cheerfulness!

Today is the last day of the arrival tour! Tonight we are already in Jäneda and celebrate the WIMA Rally 2017 for the next 5 days.

In the guesthouse: http://www.janedaturism.ee/en

The castle: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4neda

The journey so far has been exciting, interesting, varied and accompanied by many wonderful impressions. It is almost impossible that our Estonian Wima’s can top this with the rally itself even more.

We enjoy the early morning and enjoy our breakfast once again, because it will be a long day.

The first half of the next 320 km lead us along the coast, the other half of the road leads us from Pärnu into the interior of the country.

It takes unexpectedly long until we reach the border to Estonia, just before Pärnu.

Before that, we drive through the foothills of the Positivus Festival in Salacgriva,  with its miles of camping sites along the road. The festival stage itself is a little bit staggered into the forest.

The crowd of people is huge, the last day of this 3-day open air event obviously attracts a lot of listeners.

In the meantime, in good tradition, there is again a felicitous photo session at the border, which is in the process of being restructured, but still, with three motorcycles, a woman finds a quiet place in the middle of chaos.

We leave the highway to get an Estonian flag in Pärnu, so that we have a more decorated motorcycle at the entrance to Jäneda (we brought our flags with us)

In the morning we woven the blue, black and white woolen braids into our hair already.

The colors blue=trueness and trust, black=the ancestors and the past, white=snow and future which shall be symbolized by the Estonian flag, are already supported by us. Unfortunately there is no souvenir shop in Pärnu, and so we leave shortly after, without having done anything, for the interior.

Traffic will be reduced and limited to individual cars and trucks that will soon disappear from view.

DCIM100GOPROGOPR1096.

At a construction site traffic light we are stopped and watch a truck, which keeps the torn road in front of us with plenty of water dust free.

After a while the traffic light changes to green and off we go. Did I mention that the Versys are pleasant to ride standing up? At high speed I drive eastwards for the next few kilometers, and eventually I pass the water distributing truck on the way. But it’s too late, the Versys is already full of mud splashes up to the seat.

Well, it’s raining again soon anyway; -) Then it’s best to add a dusty layer, then most of it will fall off by itself. And so I went on at a fast pace along the gravel road. Every now and then a car, bus or truck comes towards us, apparently the traffic lights have only a symbolic value? But as an Austrian woman is used to dealing with cultural idiosyncrasies in a flexible way, so we will do this in the future; -)

At some point, this endlessly long construction site comes to an end and I stop in the shade of a small fruit tree to light a purely virtual cigarette.

In total there will be 2 cigarettes until our small group is together again. 😉  Yes, Iron mountain Prolog for the Win…

But the silence in the shade was pleasant, and so we all take a short break and admire our beautifully dusty and dirty motorcycles.

The negative: A clean motorcycle is quite the opposite.  The positive thing is that the motorcycles look as if we had covered half of the journey on gravel roads. That means we are now real adventure motorcyclists! 😉

We continue our journey shortly afterwards, and that what has not happened yet, is happening all the time now: We come across Wima groups, at gas stations, cafés, or in front of restaurants where we pass by.

Most of them are from Germany, but also Britons and Poles are there. We also stop briefly for refuelling, but we continue on, after such a long journey we finally want to arrive.

It still takes a relatively long time, until shortly after Aravete, when the first time Jäneda is written to. The direction is right, the way is clear, so let’s go onto the final streak!

We mount our Austria flags and are looking forward to the finish line after about 2750 km of an exciting and varied ride.

About 12 km before Jäneda we leave the main road and turn north at Käravete (hmm, the name comes to me well as I have heard it before?) and the tension rises. The pictures of the manor house were already very inviting, now it will be a ladies residence for the next 5 days.  A classic Estonian property, like many others that we have already seen along the roads along our way so far, lovingly restored and surrounded by lakes and meadows.

After a few minutes we see the town sign, and at the first crossroads we do see the sign “Wima”, which will lead you to the parking lot in front of the guesthouse.

We park in the front row, grab our first pieces of luggage and march to the reception where we are received by the Wimas from Estonia with “Tere”!

This greeting has something of Benjamin the elephant, but also other words like Aithä (thanks) sound for our ears first after something else. But more about this in the next evening, even if we don’t know it yet.

First the formalities are done and then we go to the room with our welcome goody bag.

The view from the window shows in the direction of the camping meadow, where the first tents are erected.

First a little ballast in the form of robe and helmet is thrown in the room and then back to the motorcycle to bring the remaining bags and suitcases into the room.

While the others are looking around the area, I use the early arrival to hike a little on Svenja’s paths.

There was a piece of gravel road about 10km south of here, on which Svenja passed on her baltic tour. Exactly this is the section Albu – Paunküla, which somehow leads over Napu, that’s all I could see from the maps. The area is made up of woods and moors, and the wrong roads always end up somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But where a KLX comes through, I can do it with a Versys and her road tires too.   ; -)

Of course, it’s not that bad, except for a few deeper passages with damp subsoil, it’s a wonderful track. At first it goes mostly over meadows, then through woodland, at Napu again across a meadow and then back into the forest and moor.

Nevertheless, I am glad that I removed the luggage, the track is only 1 lane, and there is surprisingly 2 times a car that comes towards me.

In the maze of paths I try to stay on the right path and manage this without ever having to go back for the 30km to the Paunküla reservoir.

The sun is shining, There are a lot of people on the “beach” and in the water. Of course, they are  gazing at the Versys and me in the full motorcycle outfit like an alien. Somehow I can’t blame them either. 
So, just a short photo stop and then I pass the famous campground, continue north over gravel and then over the newly asphalted 207 and further over the 125 in the, admittedly, very fast turn back to Jäneda.

After this little (80km) joyride, which made me want to do more, I come back to the quarter.

Now it’s time to make myself pretty (the moto gear is ripped off, then showers and normal garment) and to walk to the “Black Stallion Stable”, which is about 200m away from the guesthouse.

Here we will find the food and also the respective evening events according to the Program folder.

Hopefully it doesn’t rain too often, otherwise the whole thing will be a wet and cool affair at the expected average temperatures of 14-20 degrees Celsius.

Arrived in the “stable” I meet the cheerful, but also famished flock of the already arrived Wimas. Somehow, I guess the service and kitchen still have to be put the right way.

We pass the time with an improvised band from all women’s countries and have our fun. When the food finally arrives, I believe at almost 10 pm, it is very good, after all. Let’s hope that tomorrow, when all the Wimas are here, everything will run more smoothly.

on the way home, at 11PM

Since it is much too late this time, there is no time for the diary. As tomorrow is the official arrival day and the official program starts in the evening, I have to plan an tour for tomorrow, but I do have some ideas.  😉

[soliloquy id=”4025″]

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