Boardwalk manners, and what we wear on the bog from March to November

Plank 1

Single file, and the art of passing

Long stretches of the boardwalks we use are only two or three planks wide, which is enough for one adult with a little room to spare. When two groups meet, somebody has to wait. Our rule is simple: the group nearer to a wider section walks back to it, and the other group waits where it is. Nobody steps off onto the moss to squeeze past, and nobody expects a family with a pushchair to reverse forty metres because four adults with binoculars would like to get on.

Sunny weekends in May and September are the busiest, and on a fine Sunday afternoon at Tyrelis the boardwalk can feel like a pavement. We walk it then only when we have visitors who want to see the place, and otherwise go early or late on other days. At quiet times the etiquette is mostly about noise. Voices carry astonishingly far across an open bog, and a loud conversation at one end reaches the birds and walkers at the other end long before its owners do.

Plank 2

Dogs, bikes and the nesting months

Cranes, black grouse, waders and pipits all nest on the ground on and around the bog, from April until well into July. A dog off the lead, even a gentle one, only has to run a few metres off the boardwalk to put a bird off its eggs or trample a clutch it never saw. Two of us are dog owners, and our dogs stay on short leads for the whole walk in those months, which in practice means the whole year, because one habit is easier to keep than two.

Bikes stay at the start of the boardwalk. Wet planks are slippery enough on foot, and a bike wheel dropping between boards or off the side does real damage to the moss beneath. The same goes for walking poles with bare metal tips, which chip the wood and punch holes in whatever they miss. Rubber caps solve that. Children are welcome in every sense, and the only rule we would add for them is that nothing gets thrown into the bog pools.

Plank 3

Planks that are wet, icy, hot or loose

The boards themselves are the main hazard, not the bog. In spring and autumn they are often wet, and weathered wood with a skin of algae on it is as slippery as ice. From November they may actually be ice. Here and there a board is loose, cracked or missing, and the gap between the planks and the moss can be deeper than it looks. We walk looking a metre ahead, and stop when we want to look at the horizon.

Adders like the boardwalk too. On sunny mornings in April and May they bask on the planks or on the moss beside them, and they are easy to miss until you are close. They are shy and would much rather leave, and they bite only when trodden on or handled, so the sensible thing is to stop and let the snake go, or wait until it does. We meet one or two most springs and have never had a problem, but they are one more reason to look where your feet are going.

Plank 4

What we wear, month by month

The commonest mistake we see is people dressed for a forest walk on a day when the open bog is several degrees colder at dawn, or much hotter at noon, than the forest they came through. In March and April, and again from October, it can be bitterly cold first thing even when the city is mild, and we wear hats, gloves and a warm layer we can take off once the sun is up. In summer the opposite applies: long light sleeves, a hat with a brim and more water than seems necessary.

Footwear is simpler than people expect, because the boards keep you dry. Walking boots or trail shoes with a grippy sole are fine for most of the year, and rubber boots are useful after heavy rain, when the approach paths through the forest turn to mud. What matters most is the sole. Smooth soles on wet planks are the commonest reason we see people fall, and in freezing weather we put on strap-on ice grips before the first board rather than after the first slide.

• A warm hat and thin gloves from October to April, even on a mild morning
• Long sleeves and a brimmed hat in July, when the planks throw the heat back
• Insect repellent from June to August, and a head net for still evenings
• Long trousers tucked into socks for the forest paths, where the ticks wait
• Water in summer, a thermos in winter, and a bag to carry everything back out

Plank 5

Ticks, insects and the things that bite

Ticks are the one small hazard that comes with every walk from April to October, though they live less on the boardwalk itself than on the grassy and shrubby paths through the forest on the way there. Tick-borne encephalitis is common in Lithuania, and several of us are vaccinated, which is the usual advice here for anyone who spends time outdoors. Everyone checks themselves at home the same evening, and the dogs get the same treatment.

Mosquitoes and horseflies peak in July, and a still evening on the open bog that month is unpleasant without repellent. Late summer brings deer keds in the pine woods, flat flying insects that land in your hair, shed their wings and crawl. They are harmless, but nobody enjoys them, and a hat with the collar turned up is the best defence we have found. None of this is a reason to stay away, only a reason to dress for the bog rather than for the town.