Nõmmeveski Waterfall

The Valgejõgi cuts a small gorge through the limestone here, and at the start of the twentieth century a hydroelectric station was built to use the drop. The station is long gone, but its concrete walls, sluice channels and foundations are still standing in the riverbed, and the water now falls through and around them.

What you actually see

• The fall and rapids - modest water in a steep-sided wooded valley.
• The power station ruins - concrete built into the rock on both banks.
• The overgrowth - moss and small trees taken over so far that structure and gorge are hard to tell apart.
• The river trail - a walk between Nõmmeveski and Joaveski downstream, a better way to see it than the short path from the car park.

When to go

April is when the snowmelt gives the river its only real volume of the year. October puts the gorge under autumn colour with low warm light down the valley. Winter brings ice on the ruins and the ledge, and effectively nobody. Midsummer flow can drop to very little.

Honest expectations

This is small in absolute terms - a drop of a couple of metres and some rapids. The interest is the combination of river and ruin in a narrow green gorge, not the waterfall on its own.

The concrete is old, wet and unfenced. Walking out onto it is how people get hurt here.

Nearby

The rest of Lahemaa is around it - Viru bog, the manor at Palmse, and the coastal villages of Käsmu and Altja are all within half an hour.