Terrier Tour of Abruka Island, Estonia

By Amanda Kendle - Abby ran ahead of us on the dirt track, then looked back impatiently. She sat down on a grassy patch in between the shallow ruts made by the island's few cars. When we caught up, she barked a little, then escorted us on towards our next goal. Abby wasn't ours – just ours for the day. Her choice.

In fact, our style of traveling doesn't usually bring us into contact with tour guides, but our newfound friend – dubbed "Abby" after Abruka, the name of the island – was self-appointed, and unique. She turned up shortly after we arrived, and alternately followed and led us on our Abruka Island circumnavigation. When the population only totals fourteen, I guess it's not so surprising that the responsibility of tour guiding falls to a scruffy, grey terrier.

We'd managed to explore the rest of Estonia without a guide, even of the canine variety. Estonia was part of the USSR when we studied geography at school, so it wasn't a passport stamp I'd ever expected to collect. But the two weeks we spent wandering through this "new" nation, putting down our packs in each corner of the small country, were a revelation.

What's Estonia like? Bits are old, but mostly well looked after or covered in scaffolding. Bits are new and pretty stylish. Locals are delightful and happy to chat in English. It's hard to find a Soviet influence, at least on the surface, even in the Russian border towns. Estonia has emerged from socialism more successfully than its Baltic sisters, Latvia and Lithuania, helped by its proximity to, and friendship with, Finland.

Efficient Estonian Internet cafés helped us keep in contact with family back home. I'd mentioned our plans to visit a small island and my mother insisted on knowing its name so she could track our route in her USSR-era atlas. I didn't hold much hope of tiny Abruka rating a mention even in her thick book, but I tried to explain nonetheless. First, find the island of Saaremaa, in the southwestern part of Estonia, drifting where the Gulf of Finland meets the Baltic Sea. From Kuressaare, the main town on the island, look for a tiny dot which would be a thirty minute boat ride away. This is Abruka.

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