Denmark Cycling Adventure

Gah. Sorry this post is so late. I started it a week ago, but I think I put too many photos in it, so it kept crashing every time I opened it. I just deleted it and am starting over. For photos, check out this link.

So. Yael and I flew up to Craig and Sarah's. Crashed at their place on the first night, then the next day went to the shops for food, rented the bikes in Copenhagen, and hopped on the train, heading to Esbjerg, on the very west coast of Denmark. We arrived in Esbjerg, cycled around a bit in the rain, finally checked into a hotel, and had a good dinner and good night's sleep in beds.

Day 1

The fellow we rented the bikes from told us about an island you can take the ferry to from Esbjerg where you can go to the beach, look for amber, and have a nice cycle around, so we did that in the morning. It was a cool little island. You could drive and cycle along the beach, the sand was packed so hard, and it was quite beautiful. Back to the mainland, and we cycled for another 25 km or so, finally finding a camp spot for the night pretty much when our bodies (mostly our asses) refused to carry us any further. It was an amazing campground. Just one sight, at a local fishing hole, surrounded by trees, with a large supply of cut wood, and fire pit, grill, stools, and flat ground for the tents. Also access to running water and a toilet closer to the fish pond. It. Was. Amazing.

Day 2

We cycled through forest, fields, and finally dunes, making it to the southern point of a fjord. A very long and very beautiful day, again cycling until our knees (and asses) couldn't take it any more. Sarah miraculously caught sight of our campsite in the distance. When cooking dinner that night, we discovered that German camp stoves and Swedish fuel canisters are not compatible, so Craig had the brilliant idea of jerry-rigging the canister by shoving a small wooden "spacer" into it to help hold the valve open. We also devise a two-tier soup can cooking method, and managed to cook the rice and the lentils at the same time. Here's a shot of Yael cooking, expecting the set-up to explode and blind her at any moment, and wondering why the hell I'm taking a photo of this most brilliantly MacGyver-ed situation.

Day 3

Cycling up the fjord peninsula. I guess I'd never really thought about what Denmark looks like, but if I'd had to imagine something, it wouldn't have looked like this:

This day was amazing, and would have been even more amazing with mountain bikes and without drag chutes camping packs, but there's never anything quite perfect in life, so this is probably as close as it gets. Also, all of these days we managed to stop in small towns for beers and ice cream and fries in the middle of the day, so also nice.

We stopped at another most excellent campground in the evening, where we had our own little out-building with a kitchen and dining room in which to cook up dinner and breakfast.

Day 4

From our last campground to the train back, there was only about 22 km (we averaged close to 50 km per day, so 22 seemed too short). So we left our packs at the campground and had a thoroughly-enjoyable side-trip without packs to the village of "No". There were many puns made, and some tresspassing on private farms, as well as pushing our bikes through forests, but was also a really fun and beautiful little trip.

Then we cycled back to the train station, checked back into the hotel, and went our for some excellent pub food at an Irish-type pub called Dronning Louise. I highly recommend it. Burgers were great. Lamb shank was great. Steak was great. Had the local sports on. Brought round shots to everyone in the pub when Esbjerg scored a goal against Copenhagen. A very good end to the trip.

One last photo, to end it off: