Tuesday 29th May Denmark

After a pleasant day yesterday, and overnight decisions, we decided to head for Denmark and our first point of stay. That is, on the North Sea coast near a national park, south of Ribe.

Not too far, only about 280 miles but all, or most on motorway. Just a little traffic as we passed Bremen and Hamburgh. Well, that is what we, maybe I, thought as we prepared for teh jpurney last night.

And as they say, ' One of those days'.

So today's little gem was:

1 Traffic delays

Actually 5 in all which cost about 2 hours and lots of time sat still. Often staring at the back of some lorry or another in queues that stretched for miles. And all of this after a good start. I awoke at 5 am and, unable to get back to sleep, read a little before having tea in bed. Easy and simple.

Breakfast as the usual porridge with fruit, nuts and yoghurt. Or as Meryl put it," Your nuts are under the table. Actually we left almost on time at 8.15 am and drove down the quiet German roads towards Oldenburg. No problem!

So we joined the autoroute at that point and leant the fine art of sitting patiently in a long queue of lorries. All of these, of course were foreign. This is not a silly statement as you may suspect. One thing that we have observed before is the almost total absence of things British. I can re-call not having seen any British truck since we left The Hook. Few British cars either. Why? The almost extraordinary quantities of trucks on the road almost defies belief but where are the British?

Anyway, the hold ups were extensive as the Germans appear to renovating their motorways around Breman and Hamburgh. Some 40/50 kilometers northg of Hamburgh was knee deep in road works and we sat and sat. Then sat some more!

Perhaps it is worth noting that the behaviour of the mortorists was extraordinary. Apart from one idiot in the Ems Tunnel, everyone was, more or less, patient, no one set out to beat everyone else and we all behaved!

Another disturbing aspect of our drive north occurred at the Danish border. For the happiest country in the world, apparently, their behaviour and attitude is a little dismaying. Almost British! The border is sealed and controlled by the army. Much as he might smile at us as he waved us through I cannot be but doubtful of the politics behind the controls. The sight of a man in uniform prepared to block our entry was a worrying feature of the new controls put on the country by a right wing, populist government.

Anyway, we finally made it to our cost camp site on the coast. It is quiet and near a national park based on an island. We hope to cycle, and read, and look at the stars over the next few days.