Peter's Europe Blog: 10.8: Tiit Toots and Hiini Kanjon

The first thing on today’s agenda was to meet the mayor of the Rõuge Municipality government, Tiit Toots. My great uncle, Arne Brauer, has recently put together the second chapter of his extensive family history, entitled ‘The Visela Brauers - A Family on the Move’, which documents our family’s history during the period 1906 and 1941. I was able to present a copy of this on a DVD to Tiit. He also gave me several copies of a book on the history of Rõuge through the 20^th century along with some tourism brochures about Rõuge. I was introduced to the councils chairman Karel Saarna, along with some other people. One of the differences that struck me about this organisation is that it appears to be full of enthusiastic younger people, a bit of a contrast when compared to a typical local council in Australia. It would seem that this organisation is quite innovative and a few people have said just that when I mentioned I was going to Rõuge. The municipality owns two electric cars, used for general business around the region, plus there are several charging stations, the roof of the workshop is covered in solar panels, they’re actively promoting tourism in the region and I have been told that the school and aged care facilities located here are also of a high standard. We didn’t have a long meeting as Tiit had to be off but it has great to see him again.

Karel, myself and Tiit in front of the Rõuge municipality house

As I still had the lions share of the day ahead of me, and the weather was very pleasant, I decided to seize the day and walk to Hiini Kanjon along the Nightingale valley. This valley comprises a series of lakes (one of which is Estonia’s deepest) which extend in a northwesterly direction from the town for about four kilometres. Most of this area falls within the Haanja Nature Park. The round trip is approximately 10 km. The scenery along the way was beautiful with lush green forests, lakes, streams and several small villages. Most of the walk was on single track, with boardwalks in some of the boggier sections. I saw lots of birds and frogs and fish, along with evidence of beaver activity. The furthest point on the walk was Hiini Kanjon, Estonia’s answer to the Grand Canyon. Its cliffs are composed of quite soft sandstone and is about 300m long, 20m deep and 3m wide. The vegetation was very lush and a boardwalk runs up the middle. It was possible to drink from a spring that emerged from the base of a cliff – it tasted very pure and was cold and refreshing. The way back was mostly along the same track, although I did take a detour through a little village called Kiidi. Upon entering the village the signs seemed to disappear so I had to ask a few people how to find the track to Rõuge along the way.