Saturday 11/06/2011 Copenhagen

I have some breakfast and look up my position on the maps. After last nights experience I decide to have a few pints in the afternoon and make an early start next morning. It's disappointing to realise that after all the driving I'm only as far north as Loch Lomond and I still haven't broken my "furthest north" record.

I walk to the station to catch the train into Copenhagen (DKK60). It's a bit tricky buying a ticket. Eventually I find out that it's the local shop that sells them and I'm on my way. On the journey I notice a sports hall with one end collapsed. I seem to remember a news item, from a few years past, where the weight of snow caused a collapse in a sports centre. I wonder if this is the one.

It's carnival day in Copenhagen. There is lots of drumming and scantily clad ladies parading in feathery costumes. It's a bit like Mardi Gras. I try to take a few pictures but it's difficult to get near enough with the crowds. It's good fun for a while but eventually the drumming starts to jar on my nerves so I head off to get my obligatory pictures with the little mermaid. Unfortunately I get waylaid by a beer tent near the docks. There are a couple of blokes bashing out some standard easily listening tunes on a guitar and accordion and there are sailing ships coming and going. So I have a few Carlsbergs and spend a pleasant couple of hours in the sun. I toy with the idea of staying in Copenhagen for the evening but I've made my mind up to start early next morning and I don't want any residual alcohol in my blood. (The legal limit in Denmark is 20mg per 100ml, which is one quarter of the limit in Britain). So I grab a kebab and walk back to the station and get the train back.

For some reason Copenhagen is obsessed with elephants. There is a multitude of baby elephant size statues, painted in various gaudy colours and patterns. There seems to be hundreds of them. I'll have to look it up on the internet when I get back.

I paid DKK60 to get to Copenhagen and the same to get back. I think I could have got a return for DKK60 (as it's the week-end) Never mind, that's a lesson I'll remember if I'm ever back this way, which is not likely given the cost of everything. (DKK25 for 1 litre of water (about £3)).

I get a really early night. There just doesn't seem any point in trying to find a place to have a drink. Some lads pitch a tent and later jump in a taxi. There's a place called Kobe about 10k away; maybe there's something going on there. In the end I don't bother.

I've decided I'll call the 405 a "doormobile", on the grounds that it has doors and it's mobile.

I'm "sleeping in my dormobile" sounds better than I'm "kipping in the car".

It might help to overcome the reluctance of the some campsite proprietors to let me stay at their site.