Digital Wanderer

We live as long as we fly

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Bike Trip to Subate

2010-08-16

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We rode about 102 km in 11 hours on the first day (you can't exactly measure this crap, to be honest) and  67 km on the second.

Day one


View Subate day 1 in a larger map

Day two


View Subate day 2 in a larger map

And here's the same thing on EveryTrail.

 


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Subate day 2 at EveryTrail

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A two-story country house with a light plastered facade, a red-brown roof and a balcony, surrounded by green trees and grass, with a dirt road running in front of it. 

Almost Crete in style. Too bad they didn't finish painting the rest.

A deep sandy ravine or quarry with steep, rugged walls, covered with vegetation in places. Sandy soil with grass is visible at the bottom of the ravine, and trees against a light sky at the top. 

Almost a cave in Sigulda.

A view through tree trunks of wooden footbridges going into the water of a lake, surrounded by a green forest on the opposite shore.

These footbridges weren't here just a couple of weeks ago. Despite the crisis, landscaping continues. (This is at Svente, near the Akmeni farmstead)

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Sometimes you have to ride through stuff like this too. And you say — heat, drought.

A man in a blue t-shirt, helmet, and glasses rides a mountain bike along a winding forest path, surrounded by a dense coniferous forest. 

The punk gets twisted sideways from roads like these.

A swampy area of a forest with a dark pond in the foreground, reflecting grass and birch trunks. In the background rises a dense deciduous forest with thin trees under a clear sky.

Our swamps are beautiful.

A forest swamp with dark, calm water reflecting the sky and trees. Thick green grasses grow along the banks and out of the water, surrounded by a dense forest with live and dry trees. 

And numerous.

A bottom-up view of a mighty oak with a dense green crown. Thick branches and part of the trunk show through against a light sky.

We've got oaks too.

A cyclist in a helmet and a blue t-shirt rides along a dirt forest road surrounded by tall deciduous and coniferous trees on a sunny day. 

And they command respect.

A cyclist with luggage, shot from the back, moves along a narrow path through a field of tall grass toward a line of dense trees on the horizon. 

This is us in Šēdere brutally wandering off exactly where we shouldn't have.

A narrow old street with cobblestones, squeezed between tall stone buildings in bright sunlight. Several passersby walk along the road, illuminated by backlight creating long shadows. 

And all because we were looking for a lake.

Dense growth of green aquatic and coastal plants growing in muddy water. Debris of wood and withered leaves are visible among them. 

Someone bothered to throw this down to get across the puddle. Actually, there are just barely visible ruts across the fields leading here. At first it wasn't clear why. We went this way because we were looking for the road that Bing Maps showed us. We didn't find that road, we found this one. By the way, Bing uses Navteq maps, and Google uses Tele Atlas. The former also shows forest trails and ruts, meaning Bing is a hundred times better for us, which I didn't know before. The downside is that sometimes it lies and leads you into a windfall.

A cyclist in a helmet and a blue t-shirt stands with a loaded bicycle on an overgrown forest path next to a small stream on a sunny day.

As it turned out, the road led right here. What this is, is hard for me to understand. Most likely, it's for watching animals.

A massive tree in a dense forest with a wooden platform on which old seats stand, and a metal ladder leading to it. 

It feels like the tree on the right was struck by lightning. The branches are charred up close, by the way.

A winding gravel road goes into the distance between green shoulders. On the left by the road is a pole with wires and a tall birch, on the right is another tree and a bush under a clear sky.

Geese aggressively attacked us at first, but I didn't manage to take a picture. They ran away when the punk rode up and braked sharply - they got scared of the sound.

A flock of gray and white geese strolls along a village path and green grass with small white flowers. On the left is an old yellow wooden house, surrounded by dense bushes. 

It's night outside, but we don't care - we just keep riding and riding.

A soft sunset over a lake, reflecting in the water, framed from above by the silhouettes of trees. On the left bank is the silhouette of a person with a bicycle, and on the right is scattered garbage. 

The punk, he's in no hurry at all.

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We reached Subate at night, and brazenly pitched our tent right within the town limits, behind an unfinished bathhouse.

In the foreground is a dark metal fence with concrete pillars, beyond which a calm lake is spread out, surrounded by a dense forest on the far shore. 

It's cute in Subate, you could live here.

A one-story building with light walls, brown trim, and a gray slate roof. Above the central brown door is a carved wooden canopy with a 'Katelnica Mazais Namins' sign, and green bushes and trees grow in front of the entrance and to the right of it.

There are all sorts of ancient churches.

An old church building made of gray stone and red brick with three crosses on the roof, framed by lush green trees. An arched entrance with wrought-iron gates leads to a path where a woman is walking on the right. 

The main square is called "Market" square. You can tell right away it's an ancient settlement, and it hasn't changed much since the times of the Crusaders.

A spacious asphalt square in a small village or town. In the background are two-story houses with red brick and white facades, blue roofs, surrounded by trees. A teenager is running across the square. 

An old brick-and-stone bell tower with arched openings and crosses on the roof rises among dense bushes. A path is visible in the foreground, and to the right of the bell tower is part of another building against a light sky.

The sign on the post says that the park was built with money from a Dutch foundation.

A wooden signpost in a green park with pointing arrows in Latvian: the top one points left with the inscription 'Pilsētas centrs', the bottom one also points left with the inscription 'Kafejnīca'. In the background are dense green trees, a well-kept lawn, and a dirt path. IMG_1249

A dark butterfly with white spots on its wings sits on a purple flower, against a blurred green background. 

My GPS died, and we rode home purely by guesswork, because I don't carry paper maps with me. But we still stumbled upon a lake - lucky. In general, we swim in every single lake, if we can find an approach, well, and if the water isn't totally swampy.

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The punk is happy.

A man with glasses sits on a log bench in a clearing and pulls a blue t-shirt over his face, covering his mouth and nose. A bicycle helmet and gloves lie next to him, and trees are visible in the background. 

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At Lake Sasaļu, it's straight up the aftermath of a hurricane.

 

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The lake isn't a nature reserve for nothing - a crayfish is sitting right by the shore, you can just take it with your bare hands.

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A man in glasses took a photo of himself and his bare-chested companion resting on the grassy shore by the water. Next to them stands a loaded touring bicycle.

People, however, don't give a shit about anything — they bring their trash in cars and leave it behind. Here's another reason why cars should be banned. You can't lug this much trash on foot or on a bike. And you wouldn't leave it, because you know its true cost.

A large pile of household waste, including plastic bags and bottles, lies on the grass at the base of a tree on the left. Several individual garbage bags are scattered on the green grass in front of a dense forest in the background. 

This is us driving the wrong way again. Further on we climbed into a swamp, then a forest, lugging our bikes on our backs. Had to turn back, alas, there was no road further even on foot.

A dirt forest road with deep ruts filled with water, going deep into a dense mixed forest. Sunlight illuminates the green grass, ferns, and fallen tree branches along the way.

Overall - everything is awesome.

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