Kurzeme

The last of Latvia's four regions that remained a mystery to us was Kurzeme, the western end of the country and, in many ways, considered the most Latvian of all of Latvia. Much of Kurzeme is rolling farmland, dairy country, and, eventually, a long, deserted coastline. Inland, we passed through beautiful, lakeside Talsi and, soon after, Dundaga where we were, if just for a moment, transported back to Australia while wrestling the crocodile statue that commemorates the town's most famous son, Crocodile Dundee! It was this coastline that was our goal with the very tip of Latvia, at Cape Kolka, our ultimate destination. At Cape Kolka, Riga Bay meets the Baltic Sea and the result is currents that crash into each other, making these the wildest waters anywhere in Latvia. Things did feel wilder out here and the villages beyond the Cape feel lost and forgotten. And, we'll finish as we usually do these days: this was our kind of place.