The Kingdom of Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands) has a reasonable land area of 2,220,093 km², with only 2.5 people per square kilometre. But Denmark proper is only a measly 43,094 km², making it about 5 times smaller than the state of Victoria. The population of the country is just over 5 and a half million people, which is about half a million more than the total population of Victoria. It is an old country with a surviving royal family. Apart from this it's a pretty nice place to travel through and apparently a very nice place to live. According to a few surveys, Denmark is 'the happiest place in the world', the second most peaceful country in the world (behind New Zealand) and it has the best business climate in the world. With my socio-demographical surveying background, I am led to believe that it all started going right for Denmark after the prince went and snagged himself a Tasmanian barmaid. I mean, who wouldn't be happy knowing your future queen delivers a quality head, atop your Carlsberg beer.
The benefits of the camping huts were on full show on the morning of August 17. With no tent to pack and no wet gear, the time of departure was 8.50am, which would have to be some sort of a record for us.With this early start we had already ridden about 45km by midday, taking us past the 3,000 km mark of our tour. By comparison, if we had of ridden this distance up the east coast of Australia, leaving from Melbourne and sticking to the major highways, we would have just about reached Cairns.
The riding during this first session of the day took us back to the coast, then alternatingly following dirt tracks through pine plantations, open road stints and the occasional grass path through farmland. By 2.00pm we had already pumped out 75km and rolled into the town of Hanstholm where we decimated the bakeries display shelves, and made quite a dint in their reserve danishes also.
After lunch the coast changed direction. From our last camp to Hanstholm we had been travelling fairly westward, but after Hanstholm the coast drops and follows a very slow arc to the south, eventually heading straight south. Whilst heading westward for nearly 5 hours on this morning we had encountered a head wind coming from around every tree, at the end of every corn field and coming into and out of every corner and every twist in the road. After Hanstholm I was looking forward to a reprieve from this constant onslaught. You can imagine how disappointed I was to learn that the wind had also decided on a change and was now happily blowing its tits off from a south/southwesterly direction.
We followed the road out of Hanstholm, having no official bike path to follow. The road ran the border between the beach on the right and the low, grassy sand dunes on the left. Amongst the dunes were concrete bunkers and gun turrets, remnants from WW2; the German's having advanced to this northerly position in April, 1940. Today the bunkers serve as a good road side photo stop for tourists and something for the kids to climb on, to expend their excess energy.
The road followed this straight stretch of coast until arriving at the town of Klitmoller. There wasn't anything of note in Klitmoller; I just mentioned it as it sounds rather funny. From Klitmoller we followed back roads through forested areas whilst hunting for a campground marked on our maps. We eventually found the campsite, and also found it to be full of a school group consisting of 20 children who couldn't take their eyes off us. There was 1 free hut which we considered making home for the night, but before we unloaded we noticed that even the teachers were staring at us with the same blank look that the children were employing. Fearing a night time zombie attack we turned our bikes and casually walked back out the road, whence we jumped aboard and got out of there quick-smart. Our map showed another campsite not too much further down the coast, so this was where we headed. As we came back to the main road we reached the 100km mark for the day, and as a reward, the wind decided to ease up for the last half hour of riding. We had some trouble finding this camp, but eventually Nadia spotted the little sign we were looking for, and we followed a path into the woods where we were presented with an empty campsite. This was the most 'primitive' of the campsites we used in Denmark. Primitive only in the fact that it didn't come with running water, it still had huts, a toilet, fireplace and firewood. But of course, in classic Burke & Wills style, we had arrived at camp with our water bladders empty and our only water being what we had left in our bike bottles, wrongly presuming that this camp would have water like the last few. So dinner this night was cooked in a new style of 'minimal water' and it came out very nice indeed.
With our southerly path for the day we also had our nicest day of wind for our whole stay in Denmark. Today the wind was only mostly in our faces, instead of entirely. The day before I had been told that there was a high pressure system sitting above us and for the next few days we had been promised good weather. So accordingly, it didn't start raining until 9.15 on this morning, just after we had started riding for the day. We got out of the pine forest and had clear views out to the north sea where we could see a few patches of rain about the sky. There was 1 big rain heading our way so we legged it to the south and got ourselves away from that cloud.
The town of Agger gave us the chance to refill our water bladders and bottles. The unmanned tourist booth also provided us with pamphlets of the surrounding area. Not only is this area of Denmark the hilliest, but its also full of saltwater lakes and fjords. Just south of Agger we had to hop on a ferry for a short ride across to the next peninsular at Thyboron, and from here the road followed the coast very closely. The furthest we would get from the coast over the next 2 days was about 2 kilometres, over a journey of 200km.
After our now ritual danish pig-out at lunch we had a nice relaxing bikepath all afternoon to take us through or past the towns of Harboron, Vrist, Strande, Ferring and Bovbjerg. The bikepath took us on a winding way through sanddunes and farmland, where the corn was just coming into season. Baby corn straight off the plant gave us a juicy snack whilst on the bikes, and helped fill our cooking pot for the next few nights.
It was thanks to the Fjaltring Y.H.A that we found our next camp; it was another free shelter, this time right on the beach. There were other holiday makers with us tonight – 2 German couples, each in their campervans. With another evening of not needeing the tent we strolled along the beach and looked for amber, which can be found along the coast. I found a few pieces of something that sort of resembled amber, so that was good enough for us and we headed back to camp to find 1 of the German couples filling the air around the camp with hearty aromas coming from their German style grill. We got chatting and found them to be very friendly folk from the town of Hamburg, in northern Germany. Later we were also joined by the other couple, who also turned out to be from the Hamburg region, so friends were created and promises made to visit Hamburg on our way through Germany. Just before bed one of the men returned to us with a bottle of schnapps, which we happily drank from as we said goodbye to another memorable day on our travels.
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