Friday 8 June Skiveren

So today we left Aarhus. The camp site was fine, but we had been subjected to, in the sense that it was happening beside us, a battle royal between 3 Hooded Crows. Their noise was, at times, awful. Almost reminiscent of The Birds, they even dive-bombed campers as they walked about. Silence and peace was rare.

The drive north on the motorway was enlivened once by some dane gesticulating and pointing in some vague direction away from the road whilst make noises on his horn. I eventually decided that he did not like the fact that I was driving at the speed limit. In his view I should get out of his way!

We had decided that one of several campsites suited our needs so we went to the first on the list. A typical large, site with lots of entertainments that we would not use. Crowded and noisy site when fully occupied. The town in which it is built was, as we arrived, hosting hunderds of cyclists who were making their presence felt, some by cycling straight across the road in front of me; others by being rather raucous. We decided to go to the next one as the description sounded more to our liking; eg quieter, all new amenities, near some woods and the beach.

It turns out to be more remote, on quiet, narrow roads and, indeed, overlooking a long beach. We stopped, found a site and were soon wandering off in the direction of the beach, bird watching with binoculars. The beach is some sight: miles long with scattered cars and people along its edge, everyone enjoying the warmth of a June sun.

Lunch, then a cycle ride along thoe narrow coastal roads, deserted and quiet….umm? As we reached the entrance we found the bar area was occupied with hunderds of cyclists and what followed was..interesting. Soon after we left they must have begun to wend their way home and the unwanted sight of noisy, uncontrolled cyclists, some having imbieded to much beer, followed us for the journey out and back - well on our return we were meeting them head on so to speak. Some cycled down the wrong side, music was played to loudly, frequently 4 abreast, just uncontrolled. Given that cars were also present it was something of a challenge just to avoid being swept up by their high jinks. I guess there were maybe 300 cyclists so it was, let us say, a problem. Our short cycle ride lasted longr and covered less ground than I would have liked but no damage was done to us.