13 July 2014 (cloudy and warm) 96 km

Coo coo coo coo coo……..Coo coo coo coo coo …….Coo coo coo coo coo

Good morning Mr Dolan…….. how are you this morning?

Coo coo coo coo coo …….Coo coo coo coo coo…… I reply…… flapping my wings

Time for breakfast………and your pills……….

Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo Cuckoo……I repeat……cleaning my feathers with my beak

Won’t be long and we’ll give you a bath…….they say…

Great I think….. I could do with a bird bath……

When I’d gone to sleep last night after the football in our wooded campsite, all was peaceful. But upon waking this morning at 5am, the chorus of pigeon cooing was deafening and I felt  like I’d woken up in one of their asylums, that strangely enough, they have out in the woods.

Julia however, once again slept on….and on…..and on…..dead to the world…..

Good morning campers……….Hi de hi…….Hi de ho…..

Had gone back to dozing for a couple of hours and opened the eyelids finally at 7am.

You certainly wouldn’t go camping in Denmark if you valued your Sunday morning sleep ins. Kids at full volume from the early hours and music blasting out…… doesn’t worry me….. I’m awake before them anyhow……

Started the day with a cup of tea and then muesli in the tent and then wandered over to the kitchen to make scrambled eggs on buns.  Charged up the computer in the TV room as we uploaded the blog.  Were pleasantly surprised to find that the rain from last night had ceased and although the clouds still looked threatening, we decided to up camp and head for our final Danish island before we head to Sweden.

On the road at 10am and cruising for Sakskobing.  We were on the cycle path on the main road with virtually no cars – possible due to it being Sunday morning and possibly due to the fact that the motorway was only a few kms away.  Weather conditions turned out to be perfect today – overhead cloud but warm and a gentle breeze blowing.  Next we were headed for Vordingborg on the island of Sjaelland.  

We passed through the villages of Soesmarke and Guldborg before going over the 3.3km long bridge to Vordingborg where we arrived at 12.30pm and our first port of call was a Lidl supermarket.  Now this in itself, is unusual – finding a supermarket open on a Sunday, because throughout Holland and Germany, all shops except café’s were closed.  Stocked up for lunch and headed off looking for a nice place to eat it.  

A lovely lunch spot, but we couldn't linger too long - look at those clouds!

Ended up down at a small marina where we enjoyed pleasant views and tasty fare.  Unfortunately there were no handy haybales about.  There was a WC but it was locked, so we just had to cross our legs while we ate lunch. 

We weren’t sure which direction we needed to go from here as our map had run out at this point, so we asked a fella and his three kids if they knew which way we should be going.  Turns out they were the perfect people to ask as they had a proper cycling map and gave us good instructions to get out of town and head north.  Ended up following a fairly main road on the hard shoulder but it didn’t have too much traffic and this took us to Ronnede.  We had covered 40km in the morning session and although there were hills in the afternoon session, we were still making good headway.  Both felt strong and the road surface was excellent and we even had a tailwind for some of the time.

Wheat featured strongly again today - good to see one farmer found football more important!

At Ronnede we stopped for sustenance in the shape of a KitKat chunky bar each and a shared bottle of coke (thanks to our sponsors).  Decided that Koge was probably 25km too far so struck out for a campground at St Spjellerup, hoping for a TV room so we could watch the world cup final tonight.  After the day we had, when everything seemed to click into place for once, were we asking too much?  Arrived at the campground and were served by a very nice lady who spoke to her boss on the phone who agreed to fly us to Brazil to watch the match in person as he happened to have two spare tickets.  As it was, when we arrived, the German side noticed Pete’s juggling skills and immediately drafted him into the playing eleven under the pseudonym of Thomas Muller.

Set up tent before we left so that we would at least have somewhere to crash after the game…….!  As a pre-match warm up, Ju partook in a rose wine and Pete sampled a Carlsberg Master Brew and we devoured half a bag of peanuts.  Nothing but the best on these international Lear jets.

Have just returned from shaving and showering after a hard, but excellent days cycling on the road and I must say it is the best feeling…… don’t you think….?

Another windmill and wheat photo

At drinkies tonight, I sampled, not for the first time, I might add, Carlsberg Master  Brew. Now you must realise that in my formative teenage drinking years in the U.K. I was very much a fan of Carlsberg Special Brew. For anyone familiar with this drop, it is indeed a fine brew. Howevery, much to my dismay, I have not been able to find said brew, but let me tell you that the Master Brew, is indeed all they profess it to be. A fine drop INDEED…..!

Maybe it’s the brew, but I have been thinking about life….. all 54 and a lot years of it……..and I must say that I am so glad we decided to do this trip, as we were unsure, after so many years, whether or not we would be able to complete such a quest. It has been everything and more and we will do more of it.

After a fine meal of chilli con carne which filled us both, we took the dishes over to the kitchen and stuck our head in the television room to see if anyone was watching the final. There was a family in there and the teams were just coming out of the tunnel…………..for the second half……!

Didn’t realise the kick off time for the final, had been brought forward an hour. Still, we hadn’t missed any goals and we enjoyed watching the game with the family. Reckon the Germans deserved the win in the end and judging by the fanaticism when we were there, the whole country will have gone mad……!

On the way to the tent after the match, my watch showed it was midnight.