I did Denmark last year ‘bottom to top’ (Padborg to Skagen, all the way up Jutland). Like the slightly guilty fan of the pricey coffee and full-fat pastries in a hygge cafe, I enjoyed it so much that I’m here again, to do the happy cycling country ‘side to side’. That is, from Blåvand on Jutland’s west coast, island-hopping eastwards across to Zealand and Copenhagen’s postcardy Nyhavn, gateway to the Baltic.
We actually bagged the easternmost point last night. The tourist-oriented village of Blåvand has duney beaches, thatched cottages and a squat lighthouse. And, more important, a Spar where we could stock up for dinner and breakfast in our motel’s kitchenette.
The sandy shores were lapped by grey North Sea water the colour of, well, greywater. The next land westwards is Newcastle. A few tourists wandered round being Danish: casual, smiling, approachable.
Our route to Kolding today was similar to Day 2 of our Bottom to Top last year. And with similar weather. Because today promised heavy rain all day, and delivered it with the grim efficiency of a DPD driver.
We followed Route 1 for a few miles, disoriented by the National Cycle Network signage that’s identical to Britain’s. (We copied their style, not the other way round; though to be fair, if the typeface of road sign place names looks familiar, that’s because Denmark based their Dansk Vejtavleskrift on our Transport font, the iconic 1960s creation of the brilliant designers Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir.)
Second breakfast was in a sodden Esbjerg, where the Food Festival was looking forlorn, soaked and deserted this drizzly Sunday morning. An entertainer dressed as a sort of horse-riding fairy unicorn did her best to entertain a couple of happy and pointing kids, who clearly didn’t mind the rain. Ah, those unresentful, easy-going Danes. The only place we could find an open cafe was the train station, where we coffeed up and dried out before getting instantly wet again on resuming progress.
And yes, we could in theory have caught the train instead of cycling today. But I didn’t think about that for a minute. I thought about it for about twenty minutes, before deciding it would have been a cop-out.
And in fact I rather enjoyed the cycling. It was a full day, and raining much of the time. But with a strong tailwind and good car-free bike paths, it was not unpleasant at all. We went through villages with simply-fronted cottages and farmhouses, along almost imperceptibly rolling topography, past arable and grazing land that could be in East Yorkshire or East Anglia.
We stopped for snacks a couple of times in bus shelters – Denmark does this well – and got to the outskirts of Kolding about fourish. As we did so, though, Nigel noticed a problem with his Brompton P12’s gears – both the hub and the derailleur, so most of those 12 – and we stopped for half an hour while he adjusted, tweaked and finessed, with limited success.
While he did, I chatted to a local bloke doing woodland maintenance next to us. Turned out he was a local who’d bought himself a few acres of disused agri land to rewild and rewood it; get rid of the invasive raccoon dogs, bring back local flora, fauna, pollinators, native species. We had a slightly gloomy but resolute conversation about turning global ecological tides.
I felt like a Countryfile presenter. I felt like facing the camera, doing a link to Matt Baker standing on a fell somewhere, and then walking abruptly out of shot.
Anyway, with Nigel’s bike fixed for now, we got into Kolding, and up to the same hostel we stayed at last year. Local knowledge is a wonderful thing, especially when you remember about the little grocery-off-licence round the corner that’s open on Sunday evenings.
Miles today: 76
Miles from Blåvand: 78