I awoke in our little camping hut on Wednesday, the 19th of August as the sun was spilling over the horizon, lighting up another promising day. I took some photos without getting out of my sleeping bag and noted the westerly from the previous day still pushing enough to have the flags flittering atop their poles.I drifted back off to sleep for an hour and a half, then rose full of energy for the day to come. I stepped out of the hut and was well and truly pissed off to find that the moderate westerly had been replaced by a roaring southerly. I checked the map and confirmed that our path for the entire day was in fact taking us directly south! For a whole bloody day of head wind fun.
Thinking back to our first full day in Denmark, I recall going past the hundreds of other cyclists on their organised tour, with their big smiles and fun and frivolity. I guess if the winds that were punishing us all of a sudden swung around to aid our endeavours, then I'd be pretty damn happy too.
The morning pack was taken slowly, as our German friends were bringing us their contact details and camping suggestions. There was nothing exceptional about the ride on this day; it was long, flat and straight, taking us past Nissum Fjord and Ringkobing Fjord, the last fjord we would see on our journey.
We stopped for bakery goodies at Sondervig and again at Hvide Sande, owing to the amount of energy we were using whilst heading into this ferocious wind. Nadia did most of the hard work of leading into the wind all day, as my right hammy was for some reason giving me a fair bit of grief. Maybe it was the extra 3 kilo's I now had to carry, thanks to 1 of our new German friends generously giving us his German road atlas, even though we protested that we already had enough gear to cart with us and we were still 2 days travel from Germany. On the plus side, now with the wind coming from the south, the temperature of the day was markedly higher than the previous days.
According to our map there was supposed to be quite a few camping huts around the Blabjerg area but we failed to find any, so for the first time in nearly a week the tent was erected. That night, beside a horse track through a pine forest I fell asleep to the sounds of the wind in the trees.
Right from the start the Thursday was going to be a hot one, and it became our hottest day of the
tour, reaching a whopping 31 degrees. It was also the end of our 3rd month on the bikes. The wind had changed slightly, now blowing from the southeast, and as you would've guessed already, the coastline today changed from running due south, into more of a southeasterly direction. So once again we were slugging it out against a tireless foe.
For anyone who might be interested in cycling through Denmark, by all means give it a go, as its a beautiful country and well set up for riding. BUT - go from south to north, DO NOT go from north to south. Its just not as much fun. But I guess the bakery treats probably taste a bit better if you've sweated for them.
We travelled away from the coast to the town of Oksbol for our now necessary bakery treats. Once on the road from Oksbol we were again following the #1 bikepath all the way into Esbjerg.
Esbjerg is the biggest town we rode through whilst in Denmark, but it still wasn't big. We stopped for a while to wander the town, mainly in the search of Souvenirs, of which we didn't find many. Of course there were postcards of the royal family, but that's not my thing, sorry Mum.
With our souvenirs safely packed we made our way out of town and onto the dyke wall which runs from here all the way to Germany, owing to tidal flats and a tidal variation of about 10meters. We were already on the lookout for a hut for the night, but as with the night before, the huts marked on our map were playing funny buggers and we were unable to locate any. Because of this we were still riding in the late afternoon when I glanced over my right shoulder and saw a massive storm rolling in from the west with clouds a few hundred meters thick. So this was the result of a 30degree day in Denmark. We picked up our speed and looked to the nearest town, which happened to be Ribe, a little bit inland from where we were. For the first 5 minutes we were holding to the hope of outpacing the storm, but then like a bushfire it jumped the containment lines and bore down upon us.
The beauty of the situation for me overrode my sense of urgency and I stopped for a photo or 2, whilst for Nadia, her sense of survival kicked in and she was off down the road and around the next corner before I'd even snapped the first photo. By the time I caught up to her again the storm was nearly overhead and it would be just a few minutes more until the rain would be lashing our backs. As I came alongside Nadia a magical thing happened – we received our first tailwind in Denmark. Buoyed by this development we went flying down the road hooting and hollering, passing a local man outside his house also taking photos of this natural phenomenon. With the change of wind the little Aussie flag flying from the back of my bike also took flight, came loose and ended on the road. Nadia noticed and told me, but was scared that if I went back I would be eaten by the cloud. Feeling energetic I wheeled back to retrieve the flag. Once I was heading towards Ribe again I pushed my chain onto the high gears and had the R.P.M's going off the scale. I found Nadia asking for directions and we were shown a short cut that had us winding past farm houses and scared cows. The rain caught us with 2 kilometres still to go, but with light covering from the roadside trees, and the full brunt of the storm not yet with us, we made it into town and found the hostel before getting drenched. Over the last half hour on a flat road we had averaged 32km/h.
We were lucky to arrive only 10 minutes before reception closed for the night, and even luckier that one of the bookings hadn't arrived. That meant that in the completely booked out hostel we got a room reallocated for us and were able to drag ourselves and our gear in for a night of peace. There was a massive school group taking up the rest of the hostel, so instead of trying to squeeze into the kitchen, we treated ourselves to pizza.
The receptionist was checking the weather on the internet and told us of the predicted 30mm of rain. Glad to be inside, I showered and shaved, going to bed feeling fresh, but knowing I had to put my dirty clothes on again in the morning.
Ribe is a pretty town, and the oldest in Denmark we learnt. I'm not a fan of towns, but I did like Ribe, with its cobbled streets and houses askew. We also learnt that the European wasp enjoys the Danish bakeries as much as we do, with several dozen wasps scaring a few potential customers away from our chosen bakery. We weren't frightened so easily, and bit carefully around the wasps who reciprocated by not biting us.
Further down the road we passed through Skaerbaek and Bredebro, but didn't stop until Tonder which would be our last town in Denmark. Our main aim in Tonder was to use up our remaining Danish Kroner. I spent 9kroner on a stamp for a postcard to Mum, which left us with 50 to spend somehow. We came across the idea of going to a bakery, and with the help of the bakery girl we managed to spend the entire 50kroner, which left us with only 1 of each coin to add to our growing collection of souvenir moneys. Once into Germany we would be in the land of the €EURO, meaning we wouldn't have to go through the exchange process for a long time.
We crossed into Germany 3km further on from Tonder and found that one of our numerous maps showed a wooded area with picnic table not far to our west, so that's where we went and that became home for our first night in Germany, the 5th country on our slow way home.
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