Day 2 Skagen
Since I went to bed pretty early I got up pretty early this morning. Decided to do a repack of my bag to try and fit stuff in better. It didn't really help but I did throw out a pair of underwear I simply haven't needed and the socks I am replacing with the wool socks.
Skagen decided to put on a cracker of a day! Blue sky as far as the eye can see and very little wind! Fantastic!
I head out and get something from the supermarket to eat with my leftover bread for breakfast then head down to the tourist office and bicycle hire place to get started for the day. Of course I arrived too early and there wasn't anywhere open in town for a coffee so I just kicked around for a while until 9.30am.
The lady at the tourist office gave me a couple of helpful tips on route for my plan this morning then a couple of possible additions if I had the time.
Went and grabbed a bike from the hire shop. Cost me about $20 for the day and they were happy to hold my bag.
So I jump on my fiery metal steed and set off for the day. I don't think I've ridden a bike since university. I've taken a few spin classes at the local gym and ridden the beer bicycle in Adelaide but I'm not sure they count. I had a couple of wobbly corners at the start when I was going a bit slow but I was soon cruising along like the true Dane that I am.
I headed north first towards a place called Grenen.
On the way I went past some beautiful beaches, a bunch of old defensive bunkers (which have mostly been blocked off now) and a couple of lighthouses which was all pretty cool. It's a really beautiful place and I can see why a lot of people come here for holidays. Almost reminds me of Australian beaches but without the waves.
I ended up climbing around on the sand dunes and on rocky beaches and small paths with my bike in tow. And I broke the handbrake on the bike! Whoops! I told the rental guy later that it just fell apart when I went over some rocky ground.
Grenen is a couple of km north of Skagen and it's where 2 seas meet ... Kattegat and Skagerak. It's pretty interesting watching the tides coming from 2 different directions and hitting each other. You end up with waves going multiple directions. I'm not sure if there's a difference in the density of the water between the 2 seas or if it's simply the tides going in different directions that causes it but it's pretty cool.
Looking at some pictures on google images the water looks like it is dramatically different colours at times though how much of that is reality and how much are filters I don't know. I couldn't tell the difference today. Maybe you just need an aerial view.
Anyway - it was pretty cool. I also saw a seal sunbathing on the beach on the way up to the point. This seal was either reallllllllly relaxed or it's very used to tourists because some people were getting to like 1 metre away and all it would do is turn its head and look them in the eye. Damned tourists. Leave it alone and give it some space.
My next stop was the Sand-Buried Church. It was a couple of kilometres on the other side of town but with my trusty bicycle and quads of steel I was not deterred. I started to get deterred after riding into the wind for a good 15 minutes but I continued bravely onwards. I caused no traffic accidents and did not fall off the bike (falling off a bike is how I broke my arm as a child - treacherous bicycles!). Eventually I got there and rode down the nice dirt path passing suckers who were walking and leaving them in my dust.
The church was ... Meh. According to the sign the church was built in the 1300s but by the late 1700s the monks just got so bored of sweeping the sand out that they demolished it and rebuilt the tower in the spot where the church was To act some sort of sea marker. So it's not actually a sand-buried church. It's a demolished church and rebuilt tower. It's a nice enough building to look at and they have pegged out the area where the church was but I couldn't go inside (too late in the year I guess) and didn't really want to cycle around the national park so I took off back to town.
And I was much happier on the way back because I was riding WITH the wind!
I had enjoyed riding my bike around Skagen. I probably rode for about 5 hours and it was fun. But I'm not used that sort of exercise and my legs were feeling it by the end so I was happy to turn the bike in and go back to my trusty feet.
I stopped in at the local brewery which was open today and had a beer and some lunch then I trundled down to the train station and picked up a ticket to Odense where I'm staying the night.
It's about a 6 hour journey to Odense (hnnnnngh!) but it was comfortable enough. My first train was slightly delayed in Aalborg so a bunch of us missed our connection. The next train was FULL AS SHIT. The next one was going to Copenhagen and you could see people getting on seeing all the full seats and their face dropping as they realised they might be standing for the next few hours. Lucky for them it emptied pretty quickly and they got seats.
By the time I got to Aarhus I was wishing I had stopped the night there but I had been determined to stay somewhere different. Cursed brain.
Got there about 7.30 and John & Julian were having dinner in the train station so I joined them for a couple of beers and an asparagus soup.
Checked into the hotel and I ended up going out for a couple of beers on my own. Went to a local microbrewery where the beer was OK but the atmosphere was balls. A local ingress player pounced on me as soon as he saw me capture something in town so I went to a small bar he recommended which was really cool. He joined me a little later for a beer and a chat and then I took off to bed.
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