22/07/06 - Teamwork in a canoe?

Today was our last full day in Estonia and we had a bit of a problem -
too much money! Estonia do not use the Euro and as of this morning we
had 1300 kroons or about £65. Our old trick of using superfluous
currency to buy gas seemed a bit misguided as we have it on good
authority (The Lonely Planet) that gas is cheaper in Latvia and
cheapest in Lithuania.

After another lazy morning we checked the Soona National Park
information centre and took a quick walk around the 'Beaver trail'.
Again we didn't see any Beavers (I think to have any luck at all, you
need to be looking for them at night). But we saw lots and lots signs
that this was definitely beaver territory. Trees were felled all over
the place, other trees still standing had almost half of their trunk
eaten away, there were piles of branches on the banks of the river
which was a beavers home, and last but not least we found a real
beaver dam!! The dam had risen the water level upstream by well over
half a meter. What we learnt was that beaver's make their home on the
side of the river, with the entrance on the river side, then they dam
the river up downstream which floods the entrance - meaning the only
way they (and not predators) can get into their home is by swimming up
into the flooded entrance.

To continue using up our money we went on a self guided canoe trip.
We were driven up stream, then dropped off with our double canoes
along with 2 Estonian & 2 Austrian girls and told that to get back to
our vehicles with was a 12-13 km paddle 'that way'. Easy aye!!

It wasn't too bad, although there were a few arguments about who was
meant to be steering, and dis-agreements about which way round some
obstacles we shoulds be going. However, we made in one piece and it
was nice to take in the scenery from another angle. Our arms might
feel it a bit though.

Back to our money situation - with our canoeing not finishing till
20:00 we then had to make a mad dash down along 25km of dirt road to
Viljandi, in order to visit a grocery store before it shut. That took
care of 500 kroons and with the 247.5 kroon left we topped up with
gas. This is art itself, since should we overfill and put more than
247 kroons worth in, then out would have to come the credit card and
we'd still have a suplus cashflow problem. Daniel managed to get 246
kroons worth, thus leaving 1.5 kroons (7.5p) in the miscellaneous
currency bucket.