The sun was hot by 7am and streaming right into our tent.
We’d set it up that way as we didn’t want to hang around, so the plan was to
shower, which we did, freezing cold, as we wanted because once again it was
going to be a stinker. Tent and gear all packed by 8am when the shop opened,
bought what we needed for breakfast, enjoyed that and we were off.
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| A cottage along the way |
The first thing we had to do was repeat the 3km we’d taken
on this road to get here. That done, we settled in for a long day in the saddle, with
high temperatures the order of the day. Our first destination was Faaborg about
15km away. Had planned on taking the bike route, but decided the main road
looked a better option for this stage, which proved to be the case as we
cruised along great road surfaces at good speed into Faaborg.
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| scenes from Faaborg |
Couldn’t decide if it was swim or eat. When you’ve lived
with Julia as long as I, you know it’s swim.
After taking some
photos of the town, we went in search of a swimming place and boy did we get
lucky.
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| Our lunchtime swimming spot at Faaborg - very nice! |
Down at the harbour, they have put in a great swimming area complete
with sunbathing areas and diving, swinging and general have a good time ideas.
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| Faaborg |
After the shitty swim holes we have endured in Denmark so
far, this was fantastic. The water was cool and refreshing, exactly what two
sweat drenched cyclists required. Enjoyed a refreshing dip before I took off to
find a supermarket and Julia got stuck into some computer work. Arrived back
with lots of goodies for lunch before we both went in for another cool off,
although Ju had got quite cold sitting out of the sun, in a breeze doing the
blog. Coming out of the water, one of the nicer looking Danish women we have
seen, decided to shed her bikini top as I wandered past. Now Faaborg has many
great points and here were two of them staring me in the face. She didn’t seem to mind showing them off
either as ten minutes later she was changing into another swimsuit. As a lover of fine architecture I found time to appreciate
the curves of the structure and the way they were displayed in a public arena
for all connoisseurs and lovers of this art form, to enjoy.
Out of Faaborg and we followed cycle route 8 along the main
road. It was fairly hilly but we were
feeling energised after our lunch and swim so managed to go fast enough to
create a bit of a breeze. Then the cycle
route turned off down a country lane and you could feel the heat
intensify.
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| This afternoon's selection of thatched cottages |
The many lovely thatched
cottages we passed did a fairly good job of distracting us, as did the
Sanatorium we passed by in the middle of nowhere.
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| the Sanatorium or Syg Haus |
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| Even the snakes couldn't handle the heat! |
Saw a dead snake at the side of the road – this is the third
snake we’ve seen on our travels. We saw
one in the lake at Amsterdam campground, saw a green one about as long as my
arm writhe across the canal in front of me in Germany and now this one. I have never associated Europe with snakes so
it was quite an eye opener for me. We
had the odd pocket of forest to shelter us from the sun from time to time but
soon we were on the lookout for another swimming place. We lucked out again at Ballen where there was
a busy little beach by the marina.
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| The marina at Ballen |
The
water was pretty clear and very refreshing.
We pushed on for about another ten kms before succumbing to our daily
Magnum and then on to Svendborg. We
noticed a sign pointing to the local hospital – even though we don’t speak
Danish, we knew it was for the hospital because the sigh read “Syg Haus.” Love it.
Although the German word for hospital cracked me up as well – they call
it the Krankenhaus.
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| Typical scenery from today |
At Svendborg we had to cross a high bridge onto the island
of Tasinge where we stopped at a supermarket to get the dinner supplies. There was a campground at the other end of
the island so we made for this along the cycle path that followed the main road
across the island. Rolled up at this
campground and it appeared to be deserted apart from one man and his seven year
old son. This guy rang the owner for us
and he said we could pitch there the night.
We asked how much and were told 150 kroner – that’s nearly $40NZ! We paid only slightly more than that for last
night’s camp and got a swimming pool with that one. So we said no thanks, and continued on. We had to cross another tall bridge which
meant a massive climb up to get to the next island of Langeland. The campground here was only about a km away
from where we got off the bridge so we pitched there about 7pm having done 82km
today.
Had showers and dinner of onion sausage with pasta and
broccoli, peas and tomatoes and were just making our coffee when a Danish girl
comes in to charge her phone. She could
speak English really fluidly so we had a great chat with her and then went to
meet her partner Kim. Her name was
Marella and they have been together for eleven years. They are on their first cycling holiday for
four days and have just finished their second day.
The clouds moved in as the day came to a close and we
noticed a drop in temperature, thank goodness.
I even had to dig out my sweatshirt.
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