The Home of The Danish

The morning Nadia and I caught the ferry to Denmark was an early start. We were up at 6.00 to breakfast and pack, having to step through fresh puddles after an overnight deluge. Whilst waiting for the ferry we were joined by 4 other bike tourers heading in the same direction. The ferry ride was super smooth, with departure and arrival correct to the minute, which is pretty good for an international trip. On the ferry we got ourselves a window table and settled in with our books. We made ourselves some sandwiches and got told off by a worker, as apparently we were sitting in his bar and were meant to buy our lunch from him. We said o.k. and kept eating and he moved along happy with his handling of a potentially fun situation.

Off the boat and I was into another new country, my 4^th of the tour, but with no stamp in the passport, it's only my photos that prove I was there. Nadia was back for her second visit of Denmark, being here a fortnight before to catch up with an old uni mate. We had arrived in the port town of Frederikshaven, a small town on the east coast of the larger part of Denmark that actually attaches to mainland Europe. The capitol of Denmark, Copenhagen is on an island to the south east of here, connected to both this land mass, and to Sweden by bridges.
Denmark still uses it own currency so once again a stop had to be made to cash ourselves up, this time filling our pockets with Denmark Kroner, which were going for about 4.9 Kroner to 1 Aussie dollar.
Once we left the tourist bureau we headed north and found our bike path that would take us to the most northern tip of Denmark, only about 50km from here. Denmark really is a flat country which should have made the riding nice and cruisy, except for a fairly strong head wind that stayed with us all afternoon long. The bike path was great, very flat and smooth. It stayed close to the main road most of the way, but every now and then meandered further in to the pine and dunes that were surrounding us. The afternoon was sunny and other bike riders were enjoying the nature, with happy groups of people occupying most of the picnic tables we passed along the path. And why wouldn't the Danes be happy, knowing that their little country is in safe hands, with a beautiful young Australian lass to keep their future king in line, although by all accounts, a fairly easy task with his marathon running using up any of his excess testosterone.
We struck camp for the night in an area of grassy sand dunes surrounded by stunted, bent and wind beaten trees, a fairly ominous sign for the days to come. We made camp early, as we were close to the northern point, and with the afternoon sun we were able to dry our belongings off quite effectively. A barefoot stroll over the dunes brought us to the shore of the Kattegat where I skinny dipped with the jelly fish. On the way back through the dunes Nadia managed to nearly step on the only type of poisonous snake in Denmark, which would be a fairly ironic way to go for someone who leads tours in central Australia where there are just a few deadly snakes about.

My first full day in Denmark greeted us with clear sunny skies. The morning was spent at a casual pace, with our bike chains getting some T.L.C. Even still, we were away just after our usual starting time, which shows how much difference a warm sunny morning makes. Once on the road we ran north with the wind for the last few kilometres to Skagen, the most northerly town in Denmark. Now being as far north as we could go, that meant we then had our previously tail wind blowing hard into our faces. About 5 kilometres further on from Skagen is the visitors centre for the popular tourist attraction that is the north point of Denmark. We parked our bikes and got barefoot again for the walk to the end of the country, with the Skagerrak to the North West meeting with the Kattegat coming up from the South East. It is a very popular tourist spot, even offering a tractor ride along the beach from the visitor centre to the land's end for those tourists who have come so far, but can't be fucked walking the final 2 kilometres. After surviving the taxing walk and getting some photos of this memorable occasion we had a date with a Danish bakery. We charged back to a bakery in Skagen and I happily spent a long time choosing 2 danishes and a rum ball for dessert. It was all very nice, and pretty cheap. Nadia also had 2 danishes, and with this energy food in our bellies, we were away into the wicked wind.
We spent this day once again following beautifully made bike paths along the coast and across the country, with the trip from Skagen taking us along bike path #1. As we travelled on this day we had to not only fight the wind, but also weave our way through an onslaught of crazy, drunken, boisterous and extremely happy cyclists coming from the south. It was an organised ride, with lots of participants dressed in team uniforms, clown costumes and other fun things. One fella was so happy he was even showing his tackle to lucky passers-by and Nadia was lucky. I'm not sure if their happiness was due to Princess Mary, or that they hardly had to pedal, with a 60 knot tail wind doing all the hard work for them.
We made it to Hirtshals, where Nadia landed on her first arrival into Denmark a month ago. Here we stopped for supplies for the night, then continued on our merry way, finally pulling up stumps to the west of Hjorring, at a place marked on our map as Skallerup. Here we found what Nadia had discovered on her earlier trip; little wooden huts just for cyclists and hikers. They are spread out throughout the north of Denmark and are just small camping areas to the side of the roads, sometimes hard to find. There are 2 or 3 of these huts at each campsite and it seems to be a 'first in, best hut' situation. All the camps we used had long drop toilets and fire places, most had water and some even had a pile of firewood ready to be used. Whenever we were able to use these huts it made both our nights and mornings much easier, without needing to set up and pull down the tent and with space to keep all our gear dry. We found that we didn't need to unpack a lot of our gear.
The North West area of Denmark was awesome, with pine and oak forests covering large areas, with hiking and biking tracks running through the forests in all directions.
Late on this day the sky filled with low, grey sheet clouds that dropped the temperature by several degrees.

On the 15^th of August we didn't get to see the sun. It was overcast and cold all day, with rain on and off. And added to this we were pulverised by a relentless wind that changed directions to be against us all the way. By the end of the day we had managed to grind out 60km, which took us over 4 hours. During the morning we came across a beautiful old lighthouse that was being enveloped by a massive sand dune that was slowly marching inland, taking over not only the lighthouse, but also the scrub forest to the east. At the town of Lokken we once again raided the bakery and feasted on very big pastries and a few danishes just because we were in Denmark.
Once again we were able to follow bike path #1 for the day, but chose to ride on the roads for a while instead of a 20km stretch on the beach where we would have been blown backwards in the wind, and cried. At this beach I chatted to the lifeguards for a while, who were sitting warm and comfortable in their vehicle, and with no swimmers due to the weather, I felt right at home. The lifeguards told me that the summer before they had a guard from Australia at this beach. They also told me of the great pay rates for lifeguards in Denmark, which could possibly see me returning in the future to sit in a comfortable vehicle and do not much; I'm pretty good at it.
We rejoined the #1 path just south of Blokhus, and were very happy when the track started weaving through the pine forests, keeping us out of the main barrage of the wind. We found our camp empty and awesome with shelters like the night before, but better ones. There was even a little hut with a table and pot-belly stove. We grilled up some steaks above the fire and washed them down with some soup. With the smell of meat around the fire, I was motivated to go and lay a snare to catch a rabbit. After this I flaked in our shelter and put in a good book reading session.

After covering 200km over the last 3 days we decided to give our legs a rest, so a rest day was declared for the 16^th. On this day the rain continued to fall on and off and the wind to howl. I pottered about for the day, realigning my front racks and bull horns. Finding no rabbit in my trap, I wandered through the forest and stalked some deer for a while. When passing under a branch I was caught in the eye by a flinging twig and couldn't see much, so I made it back to camp where I slept for an hour. Nadia spent the day with her book and finished reading The Da Vinci Code just in time to get dinner on the go. After dinner I started reading my new book – The Pillars Of The Earth, and that brought another hard day in the life of Wally and Nadia to a close.