Green Dune in Kemeri National Park / Day

If you are tired after a week of work, but craves for an adventure in the wild, which does not require much energy, but gives you the opportunity to enjoy the diversity of nature, go on a way where you smell like resin, swamps breathing mist and blinking under your feet! Although it seems that the Kemeri National Park is already a place known to hike lovers as their own pocket, there are still less popular pearls, such as the Green Dune Trail.

Not count kilometers but let the trail lead

There is a special route in Kemeri National Park – an approximately 22 kilometer -long circle that can be shortened to 15 kilometers if it is decided not to reach the Kanieri mound. The road can start where the heart wants – from Kemeri Railway Station, Partisan Street or any other place, as the route returns to the starting point.

Although the route is circular, it is possible to extend or shorten it in several sections, and this time, going to walk it with the first breeze of spring, we were guided by feeling and energy resources, so we did not measure the kilometers, but they could be around 15 and in a few hours.

We started the road at the end of Partizanu Street in Kemeri, where the hustle and bustle of civilization is gradually retreating, giving room for nature voices. There is a parking lot for cars and there is also an informative stand on the nature values ​​in the neighborhood. The forest road leads, and on both sides, the streams and wet wetlands, where both conifers and deciduous trees grow. Water in the sun shines, and even though it is warm, it is actually covered with an ice layer, frozen in a peculiar ice pattern pattern. Later, the landscape changes and becomes typical of the swamp, but after a while we arrive at a slide birch growing, which includes the trail on both sides. It is not possible to understand whether they are new trees or small birch birches typical of swampy places. Beautiful is anyway!

Respectful of nature values

However, as I walk in a good step, the feeling is monotonous, but then again it comes to surprise – suddenly it ends and in front of a steep sand hay -column. This majestic, pine -guarded Sandwall is an ancient Littin Sea memory that has been up for more than four and a half thousand years. At the time when the sea retreated, this quiet giant was born, protected by forests and swamps today. This place is also easy to reach by bicycle, but across the dune where the land is alive and breathable, you can only go on foot – let the bike rest at the foot of a pine! The Green Dune is large but fragile, in a way as a living being – it feels the lightness or heaviness of human steps. To safer for the dune and more comfortable for beautiful views, the stairs are carried to the top, and the viewing platform is set up at the top.

The green dune stretches far and high as wild waves, crossing the kingdom of swamps and conifers. In the East it is accompanied by the mysterious witch swamp, in the west by the green bog. In some places, the road winds through wet bands, where the remains of old wooden footpath are still visible. In wet weather, these places can require shoes that are not afraid of water, but in dry months, everything is easy to overcome.

Antiņciems did not find

Behind the dune route seems to be branching, but later again blends into a clearly conscious trail leading to Antiņciems, a place where civilization winds came late, only in the 1970s, when electricity was pulled here. There are no indications on the spot – we believe in what the map of the phone tells us and describes the tourist guides. Antiņciems will have a choice: either to go back to Kemeri on the shortest but uneven Antiņciems path, or extend the walk to the shores of Lake Kanieris, Lapmežciems and Jaunķemeri, allowing a 15 -kilometer -rich landscape gallery. The third road leads even further – to the area of ​​Lake Valgums, where the waters and forests await again. Honestly, in the woods, we don’t understand it and just go where the trail leads. We didn’t come to Antiņciems.

The forest landscape is replaced by the swamp landscape, there are footpaths, but most of them are not. We judge that there will definitely be a lot of blueberries in the summer, because in some places the land is covered like a single carpet.

The sulfur ponds of the mud kingdom

There are even three swamps surrounded by the green dune: witches, green and Chaukciems bogs – dune island archipelago, who hides a lot of undiscovered natural value. There, in some places, mesh and, of course, various swamps and wild birds are burning.

When the excitement about nature and the sunny day began to be replaced by fatigue, we got to the crossroads, where there were finally leaning that we could turn to Lake Kanieri or go back to Kemeri. We, of course, chose this variant and instead of the trail, we now measured the route along the gravel road. We walked and walked, the swamp to the right, the wetland to the left, the road is wider, and the cars were also missing.

The unusual gemstone of this trip is sulfur ponds – a real miracle of Latvian nature. They live on the lap of the witch’s bog, halfway between Kemeri and Antiņciems, which we didn’t notice on the spot. The wooden footpaths leading to the ponds at first glow through the dry, dwarf bog, later across the open places, where the ponds are very calm and the wind blows seemingly unhindered under the sky and looks golden glittering. This is because in the spring, when life in the swamp wakes up, sulfur pond water is yellowish – the microorganisms that inhabit this sulfurwater paradise create a picturesque view.

As you get closer, the air smells strongly in the air after the rotten eggs – a touch of sulfur that was once honored to heal. It is a healing handwriting of nature that once gave travelers and, as we know, has also served as a resort of resources and healing.

The trail along the footbridge forms a bow – it allows you to bypass the sulfur ponds, enjoy the expanse of the high swamp and return to the starting point enriched with new impressions and a little tired, because, unlike the stage behind the green dune to the gravel road, there is no shortage of other nature lovers.

Next, there is no romance anymore, as when they enter Kemeri, a piece of the road has to be missed by private homes on the most common asphalt street. We are trying to cheer ourselves by rejoicing in the booming spring flowers in gardens and the various types of puppies in the roadside bushes.

Unusual and rare

• Sulfur ponds are a rare natural phenomenon in Latvia. It is a place where sulfur water flows out of the sources and accumulates in several ponds.
• Sulfur -rich water is the reason for a peculiar flora and pond water. In the spring, microorganisms are multiplied in the pond water, which stains the water in yellow.
• The sulfur sources are characterized by a strong smell of rotting eggs, but before scratching the nose, it should be remembered that hydrogen has healing properties.
• In Latvia, the best known sulfur sites with healing properties are in Kemeri and Baldone.
• The most popular Latvian sulfur was a tourist attraction in the lizard in Kemeri, which flows into the nearby Taurus.
• There are eel mourning in the Mores parish of Sigulda County – several small springs.
• The sulfur spring is also located in the Chuzu swamp in Kandava parish.