Blog 11 Christiansø

It was my intention to lump Christiansø in with the Bornholm blog even though it is 30 odd miles away I think it is considered to be part of the package - but it is very special. On arriving at this small rocky fragment of Denmark you enter a world as it existed well over 100 years ago - the harbour fills a rock crevice between Fredericksø island and the larger Christiansø where no more than 100 souls scrape a living from fishing and humouring the tourists without pandering to the slightest commercial temptation. There are, and never have been cars or any motor vehicles and no roads other than stony tracks and nature and its creatures are in full control of the environment. Tiny mustard coloured cottages with orange tiled roofs squat in to the terrain for protection against the elements and black fish smoke houses with white angular smoke stacks protrude here and there. We did get a smile and a response from the locals but in that isolation, I sensed that it has an effect on the character in the end.

Way back when the British were a threat, King Christian V built circular castles with canon and barracks for the soldiers - the fortifications , the houses, the inn, the harbour, everything in dry stone blocks hewn from the island itself and constructed without an ounce of mortar - a massive task but one which today enhances the natural beauty of the little dwellings.

Pink sea thrift, wild rose and a variety of water buttercup edged the freshwater ponds formed in the natural granite bedrock and I stood and looked out over the seawalls, Eastward, where across the sea there was nothing between me and Russia just 160 miles away.

Laying alongside the harbour, Talisman is kept company by a gannet who has built her nest on the quay, only needing to make faces at passers by who get too close but that would be about 2 Mtrs otherwise she doesn't worry. Guillemots and razorbills have colonised rocky outcrops and move around like waiters in some GP Wodehouse restaurant and flocks of adolescent eider duck patrol the harbour with their hilarious non-duck mutterings. It is gone 10 pm local time, the sun has just touched down, it is still light but the birds are now beginning to think about calling it a day - what a long day.

People come here for the peace, natural beauty and tranquillity - I found it a memorable and rare experience which luckily nature has a imposed a way of limiting the impact of tourism. It is easy to see this sort of place as a paradise but to live the life there would be asking too much - where are the children? - once out of primary school they leave the island - a difficult way of life. Tomorrow we move North to Sweden.