Walking the long hiking trail of Karula National Park, Estonia

Neanderthalers are alive in Estonia. They sojourn on the banks of Lake Õdri amidst Karula National Park. A big family of buffoons occupied the whole RMK campsite. Magazines, garden chairs and badminton rackets were strewn all over the ground. They were noisy, ate with their mouths so far open that you could see their uvulas, and farted and burped loudly as if it were their way to honour the company of strangers. A few of the men of the company started chopping down trees to feed the fire. In. A. Protected. National. Park.

I grumbled. I just wanted peace and quiet, not a festival ambience. And here were these muttonheads fooling around as if they owned the forest. We could have expected this — after all, we’d chosen a hot August weekend to explore this national park in southern Estonia. And yet, if this fell under the freedom to roam, then surely one could also walk into a shop, start grabbing things from the shelf and leave without paying, citing the human right to food as a validation.

After a quick swim, we trotted away. We didn’t come to Karula National Park to be irritated. Passing the cars in which the moron brigade had arrived – these people would use their car to fetch the newspaper from their mailbox – I wondered how different our experiences must be. For we were walking across Estonia’s smallest national park, following the long hiking trail of Karula National Park, a 36-kilometre loop that winds through its most picturesque landscapes.

The geography of Karula National Park

Mist hung thickly over the landscape when the bus dropped us in Lüllemäe that morning. Dewy cobwebs shone between grass and bushes. We followed a wide grassy trail and tried not to step on the small frogs making their morning walk. As the hiking trail didn’t directly pass Lüllemäe, we had to find it using a poky map on a small screen. Educated guesses. We walked, took turns, blindly hoping the geography of the land would start to correspond with the one on the map.

With the courage of despair, we continued through a cow pasture towards a small lake. Through the tall grass, snail shells creaked under our hiking boots. Mass murder on the walking trail. One by one, we tested all the side trails until there were none left and we had to return towards Lüllemäe. We had been walking for two hours on the ‘health trails’ of the town. On the way back, we came across a small path leaping into the right direction. At the end of that path, we found an electric fence around a cow pasture. Against a tree lied a tattered placard with the words “Karula National Park” on it. I would have liked to be about eight kilometres further, but finally, we had reached the official beginning of our adventure.

We had been meaning to visit Karula since 2016, when a worker of the visitor centre had picked us up during a hitchhiking trip through southern Estonia. This national park is somewhat of a curiosity in Estonia. After the last ice age, 10.000 years ago, retreating glaciers left the terrain much hillier than most parts of this country*. Don’t expect the Alps, but still. Eskers make up the south of the park, meandering mounds of sediment, looking like railway embankments, formed within tunnels of ice by streams of meltwater. Here, in the north, kames, bulging hills that sprang up on the surface of a melting glacier. Sorry for the geography class. The result is a curious landscape unlike any I’ve seen before in Estonia. At times, the relief reminded me of a mix between that of Ardennes and Flemish Ardennes, two Belgian regions I love.

(*On a side note: that same ice retreat deposited glacial erratics all over Estonia, huge boulders in the middle of nowhere that became such a big part of the Estonian identity that the government decided to use one as a logo. Although most Estonians agreed that it looked more like a puking hedgehog than a rock.)

A night on the rhythm of nature

Disregarding the advice of RMK, we decided to hike the trail clockwise. Plastered against the slopes of Varesemägi, or Crow’s Hill, we followed the tree line bordering a cow pasture before diving into the forest. At last, we were making progress. A red squirrel jumped from a birch into a spruce tree,  scrambled up a branch and looked at us from a safe height, not moving until we left. Fishermen went out in rickety boats on lakes that slowly turned into swamps. In a small patch of bog, a lesser marbled fritillary willingly posed for a photo whilst hanging out on a devil’s bit. The mist slowly cleared, making way for a sunny day.

The long hiking trail of Karula took us over hills abounded in forests, past grasslands rich with wildflowers and along a gravel car road. We ate wild apples, picked mushrooms for dinner and swam amongst the aforementioned Neanderthalers. On a muddy trail, we tried to determine animal tracks. Was it a lynx or a dog? This high-value forest is home to moose, deer, wild boars, lynxes, wolfs, bears and the largest population of black storks, as elusive as they’re beautiful. Parts of the park teemed with people, mostly the RMK camps and fire sites near lakes, but others were completely abandoned. Along one particularly deserted path, we walked for two hours without encountering a single soul, until we ended up in a tiny village where an enterprising local sold tacos, quesadillas and bean soup. Not a recommendation, though, service smelled of nepotism.

Our initial idea was to hike until a small campsite called Plaagi, on the other side of Lake Ähijärv, but the morning’s endless loops into nothingness rendered that plan inconceivable. So we settled for a spot on the northern edge of the lake. Whilst we swam and prepared a stew of rice, beans and mushrooms, the traditional Saturday village party broke loose near the visitor centre, on another bank of the lake. Estonian folk music and a loud emcee filled the airwaves, the fumes of the smoke sauna rose up. As the closing whines of accordeons died out, we fell asleep after a quiet evening on the rhythm of nature.

Hitchhike from paradise

We enjoyed the northern part of Karula National Park the most. The relief was somehow more special. The second day ran through gorgeous yet mostly familiar landscapes – forest trails through endless pine woods. The stuff Estonia’s made off. We hadn’t seen a human in hours when, deep in those forests, we finally reached Plaagi. An idyllic garden of Eden, completely deserted, a difference of night and day compared to the hell we’d seen a day earlier. Sweat dripped down my back. I peeled all the clothes from my body and ran into the lake. Ah, candy for the soul.

We needed to get to Lüllemäe quickly if we wanted to make the last bus to Valga. Having lost too many hours a day earlier, we simply wouldn’t get there in time if we walked. On a gravel road, we stuck our thumbs out. Alas, civilisation is very scattered in Karula National Park. The locals adhere to the age-old Estonian adage that the best neighbour is the one of whom you see only the smoke from his chimney. We had walked three kilometres before the first car passed us (it was full), three more before the next one (that same full car) and two on top of that before someone stopped (who, going to pick up her daughter from a birthday party in a neighbouring farm, could only drop us a kilometre or two further).

Finally, we made it to Lüllemäe thanks to a woman who was driving around looking for her dog. “He usually returns home anyway, so I’ll take you guys into town first”, she said. The bus to Valga, however, had left by then. Which meant we had to hitchhike another twenty kilometres. After two hours of idly wasting time by the road, a rickety delivery van stopped. Anete was just making a phone call, so I approached the driver.

“Russkiy? Deutsch?” he asked.

“Valga? Möglich?” I answered. I wondered if those were vodka bottles on the passenger seat.

“Möglich.” He looked confused, but then again, so did I.

We were both relieved when Anete hung up the phone and started speaking Estonian. I jumped in the back of the van, between the jumble of carton boxes of Red Stripe chips, random items of clothing and Jack London paperbacks. “He asks you not to put your feet on the car batteries”, Anete said. Those batteries, dusty and rust-covered, looked like they hadn’t left the van for three thousand years, but in reality, our benefactor would drop them off that very same trip. He turned out to be a chatty bus driver who randomly turned into side roads to show us the manor houses of Karula and Kaagjärve. “I once picked up a hitch-hiker who just returned from an organised bus tour. When I dropped him off, he said that he’d seen more in that two-hour drive than in two weeks in that bus”, he laughed.

And so our trip to Karula National Park ended as chaotically as it had started. Another proof that travelling without a car leads to more memorable meetings, deeper connections, more adventure and more of all these emotions and feelings – will we make it? – that make us feel like we’re alive.

(practical information below the picture gallery)

Practical information about Karula National Park

What is the long hiking trail of Karula?

Measuring 36 kilometres, the long hiking trail of Karula provides a sample card of Estonia’s smallest national park. Running through forests, past lakes and scattered dwellings, the trail is an excellent way of exploring the nature of this remarkable corner of the country. The trail is marked (or sometimes not!) with white and yellow painted signs.

Other hiking trails in Karula

Besides the long hiking trail, a bunch of shorter hiking routes explore Karula National Park:

• Peräjärve forest trail (4 km)
• Ähijärve roads and paths trail (4 km)
• Rebäse landscape trail (7 km)
• Nature trail for children (0,4 km)

Based on what we saw of them, I’d recommend Rebäse landscape trail, in the north of the park, as the most diverse of those routes. You can find a free hiking map with all the hikes, as well as other info about Karula National Park, in the visitor centre in Ähijärve. The visitor centre is also the start (or the end) of the longest of RMK’s three long-distance hiking routes, 820 kilometres to Peraküla. On our bucket list!

Check out some of our favourite Estonian hikes accessible by public transportation.

How to get to Karula National Park by public transportation?

Karula National Park is about as far as you get from Tallinn without crossing a border. At around 20 kilometres away, Valga is the nearest city. It has regular links to and from Tallinn, Pärnu (direct or via Viljandi) and Tartu (via Võru).

A free bus leaves Valga six times a day on weekdays, five times on Saturday and three times on Sunday, and runs through parts of Karula National Park. After comparing the bus route with the hiking map, we got off at Lüllemäe, the only village with any kind of facilities in the vicinity of the park.

RMK, the state forest organisation that takes care of the trail, recommends starting your hike from the visitor centre in Ähijärve and doing it counter-clockwise. Coming from Valga, however, Ähijärve is practically inaccessible by public transport. We started our hike from Lüllemäe instead. Read on to get instructions to find the trail.

Another option would be to approach the national park from Võru. A direct bus leaves the Võru bus station each day at 11:55, arriving in Ähijärve, the official starting point of the loop, at 13:19. Not the most convenient arriving time for hikers, unless you plan to spend a few days in the region.

All the bus information was verified at the time of publishing (2020).

How to access the trail from Lüllemäe?

We started our hike from Lüllemäe. Beware: it’s not easy to find the trail! I’ll explain it to the best of my abilities. From the bus stop in Lüllemäe, follow the road for a few hundreds of metres towards the east. After the church, a path goes to the right. This is the starting point of the ‘health trails’ of Lüllemäe (‘Karula-Lüllemäe terviserajad’ on Google Maps). Follow that trail, over a hill, until you reach a T-crossing. Turn left. After a while, you’ll notice a small path backtracking to the right, slightly up a hill. This is the trail you’ll have to take to get on the long hiking trail of Karula. If, instead, you go ahead, you can explore a few shorter hiking trails that loop around. If you reach a small wooden bridge with a swing, you’ve gone too far.

Sleeping in Karula National Park

Camping is the way to go in Karula. The national park has several RMK campsites with basic facilities (picnic tables, dry toilet, fire pit and provided firewood). We planned to stay at Plaagi but finally contented ourselves with the Veski campfire site. A beautiful spot next to the lake which we shared with two hikers and a middle-aged couple that offered us some of their barbecue leftovers. All very respectful people, so nothing like the Neanderthalers at Õdri.

There are several other official camping sites. Camping elsewhere isn’t allowed, except on private land with the permission of the owner. If you have a sleeping bag but not a tent, you could try Kivi Forest Hut for free (and let us know how it was!) Those keen on more luxury can find shelter at the cute-looking Järvenukka holiday house.

Visiting Valga

We used Valga as a base for our trip to Karula National Park. A border town with an interesting history, about which you can read more in this excellent article on Deep Baltic.

We had visited Valga before in the winter of 2017/2018, when we returned from Riga to Pärnu via the scenic route: with the train through Gauja National Park. Back then, Valga had looked depressing — ice cold temperatures, crumbling Soviet residential blocks, residents with Weltschmerz in the eyes and visitors only interested in the cheap alcohol on the other side of the border.

The residential blocks were still crumbling, but the beautiful weather made all the difference. Now, we walked through pleasantly broad parks and past a lake that invited us for a swim. We were very happy about our stay in Valga.

Sleeping in Valga

We stayed two nights in Valga, one before and one after visiting Karula National Park. We’d had booked a room in Helge Guest House, a family homestay at the end of a dead-end road. The owner, Helge, leaned out of the window upon our arrival, inquiring about which languages we spoke. She seemed equally relieved and disappointed when she found out that Anete was Estonian. She really wanted to practise her German. Helge was a bit of a character, cheerful, chatty and always smiling. She even offered to drive us to the bus station. Recommended.

Eating in Valga

In spite of Valga’s decent size, it wasn’t easy to find a place to eat. We had already almost given up hope, prepared for a meal from the supermarket, when we stroke up conversation with a local. “Valga is a bit of a bomb hole”, he said. “But there should still be two places open: a cheap one and a more expensive one.”

The man was headed in the direction of the former and didn’t mind dropping us off. We liked Conspirator so much that we returned two days later. I was especially enamoured by its plethora of interesting vegetarian options, such as mushroom ragout, very rare for your average Estonian café. Cheap and cheerful, as it should be.

For the record: the more expensive option is called Lilli.