I am in Soomaa national park, Estonia, standing in the middle of one of Europe’s largest peat bogs, with what look like red tennis rackets strapped to my feet.
And I’m conscious that one false step could lead to me ending up to my chest in cold, muddy water.
‘I don’t know about that bit. It looks a bit too wet,’ Algis Martsoo’s warning comes just in time. I still have chance to change direction and skirt around a sinister-looking patch of black mud splashed with sporadic greenery.
Still, if one must be in the middle of a bog, Martsoo is a good person to be with. As a ranger, ecologist and guide at the national park, he is something of an expert in local habitats and to spend an afternoon in his company is to take a crash course in one of the continent’s rarest landscapes.
