7 July 2014 (warm, cloudy, drizzle in am, sun and cloud pm) 63km

The cardinal rule when bikepacking is never to mention the fact that you had a tail wind, cause sure as eggs are eggs, you’ll get constant head winds…….forever.

No sooner had we mentioned our pigeon stalker last night and he’s back to driving us insane with his repetitive bird sounds, which I believe is subtle code being translated by foreign powers. I can only imagine that they’ve heard about the blog and want to get a look at the real fact finding stuff we’ve been recording.

Talking about how well our tent was doing on this journey was the precursor to a massive storm last night [can’t believe some of these conditions ] that had us up at 1.50am trying to best cope with a leak that had appeared right over my head. Being the paranoid individual that our feathered friend has made me, I firmly believe that those foreign powers heard our conversation and are in cahoots with whoever is controlling the weather, to try to break us.

BUT YOU WON’T …YOU BASTARDS…… THINK YOU’VE GOT US BEAT…..THEN THINK AGAIN……..!

Julia here……I kept telling Pete he needed to chill out or that dark cloud of pessimism he carries around with him was going to explode over his head one day, or night.  I mean of all the places for the leak to occur, it happened to be right over his head.  Yes, I did have a quiet snigger to myself….

Awoke to grey skies and drizzle although after last night, drizzle was a vast improvement.  Because the supermarkets were shut yesterday, we had a somewhat meagre breakfast this morning consisting of a bread bun with butter and jam on each and a cup of coffee.  Shook the flysheet to try and disperse as many drops of rain as we could before stowing it away in a separate plastic bag to dry out while we had lunch – assuming there would be some sunshine by then.  Left our little camp in the woods which we had entirely to ourselves, at about 9am.  Had a very pleasant 20km ride into Sonderburg along fairly quiet roads with cycle lanes for us off to the side. 

The land is pretty agricultural round here, lots of wheat and barley and again, lots of horses and a few cows.  The last two days the terrain has been fairly undulating but today we crossed the realm into slightly hilly, although the gradients are mostly easy.

In Sonderburg the first thing we had to do was find a bank and convert some Euros in Danish Kroner,  They have a weird ticketing system, a bit like the Whangamata fish and chip shop, where you take a number and wait to be called.  After a long drawn out performance of about twenty minutes, Pete at last emerged from the bank and we got on with the next piece of business, hunting down some camping gas. 

For once it was easy and after buying that we went to the supermarket to see just how expensive Denmark was.  Having expected far worse, we found it to be only about 15-20% more than you would pay in NZ.  Alcohol and eating out seem to be the worst culprits so it will be an alcohol free week for us with lots of tinned herring and macaroni eaten in the tent.

With our panniers fully stocked once again, we headed for the seafront so we could make some lunch and dry out the tent in the warm sunshine.  We had heard some bad things about Scandinavian bread but were rapt to have found a soft white loaf which we paired up with some ham and then had a delicious choc chip muffin each with a cup of coffee. 

Feeling revitalised we set off along the coastal bike path which lead into some woodlands at the water’s edge for a few delightful kms before leading us back to minor roads for the rest of the afternoon’s journey around the peninsula.  At Mommark we stopped off for a Magnum each and met a German bikepacker who was out for a week’s holiday.  We saw lots of bikepackers today and yesterday – it’s like a bikepacking mecca round here.  They mostly seem to be German or Danish and mostly older as well.  Our German friend was one of the youngest and we’d put him about thirty. 

Had really lovely country lanes for the rest of the afternoon past thatched cottages and farmland – it reminded us both a lot of England.  The other bonus was there was hardly any traffic. 

Got to Fynshav at 5pm and decided to call it a day after 63 km.  Had to buy a European camping card here for about $50

and then paid $30 for the night.  Think we’ll be using those nature places fairly often.  But at least you didn’t have to pay extra for showers so we jumped into those straight away.  The camp is right on the beach but unfortunately the water is not that inviting as it’s full of kelp and also looks murky.  After our showers we did a load of washing before cooking dinner in the communal kitchen and meeting some Danish bikepackers who are on a ten day trip round Denmark, (again, about our age).  Ate dinner and had coffee, threw the washing in the dryer and charged the computer while writing the blog.  Plotted our course for tomorrow and folded the washing as the sun went down before retiring to bed and hoping for a quieter night than the last one.

P S……Pete here……..Thought I’d mention a Danish delicacy we came across today. They are called midges and we must have eaten a bucket-load as we cycled today. They are constantly flying into your eyes and nose and the amount of times we were spitting to get them out of our mouths isn’t worth mentioning. Apparently, when you go out for a meal here, the first thing they ask you when they take your order is……..do you want midges with that…….!