06-Jul-2001 -- I was in Lithuania for World Masters Orienteering
Championships, and was staying in Kuldiga, Latvia
on the way back to Riga, attempting to catch the
Saldus Cup orienteering event the next day. I
noticed the confluence was only about 5K out of town,
and even though it was 22:30 at night, there was
plenty of daylight so I decided to go for it.
Most of the land around town was cultivated, and
I do not speak Latvian, so I was not optimistic
about being able to get to it without trespass, but
as luck would have it, the roads I was following lead
into a park/reserve about 1000m north of the small
town of Mezvalde. I got within 400m on roads by car,
then found an old track thru the forest that took me
about 100m or so to the east of the confluence.
From there I had to bushwack thru very thick mixed
pine and undergrowth forest. The bugs were bad,
gps reception wasn't great, and it was now pushing
23:00, and the light was beginning to fade a bit.
I hit a grassy clearing, the gps saying I was about
20m to the south of it, and with the poor coverage I
wasn't sure I could get a more accurate fix, and the
woods to the north were impassable. Had I had more
daylight, I would have made a go at getting triple
0s (which would have been meaningless given the
thickness of the cover), but as it was I had to
snap the pics at f3.5 open for 2-4 sec without a
tripod in the fading daylight so I took what I could
of the light in the clearing.
Not ideal, but you do the best you can. I will say that
it is very representative of the forest in this part
of the world -- thick, lush forest riddled with grassy
clearings, although with luck one can find stands of pine
forest with absolutely no undergrowth. The first pic
is to the south, then east, west, then north.