danish vikings

Went over the border to Denmark in Flensburg. It's just a bicycle path that continues from Flensborg along the coastline and at the border takes a swing to the right and leads around the border control station.

There's somebody "controlling", what in the end means cars driving slower past him. Think there must be something really strange on the road before they stop you.

So got a challenge for you - try to get stopped 😛 A tractor and wagon with a decent marching band on it might do the trick.

Denmark feels quite different when actually we just went a few meters further. The houses starting to get a slight scandinavian touch. Yep - the houses are painted red now.

Went up till around horsens and to the ferry at Hou to cross over to Samsø, the small island between the mainland and sealand, where you find coppenhagen in the east of it - just at the border to sweden.

The first night was great, after a few kilometers straight ahead there was one of the forrests you can camp in. Drove in a bit further on double tracks and single tracks until I was at the spot with three lakes and a clearing.

This camp spot sparked memories of sweden.

The landscape is a mix of fields. Some small Forrest here and there and loads of hills - not huge ones but the road snakes ahead and you go up and down.

Wild camping is still relatively easy. In denmark there is no general allowance to just stake a tent as we got it in Sweden or Norway with Jedermannsrechten but the ministry of nature designated 400 forrests for the use of camping. Thats pretty much all of them which are not nature reserves. There it is allowed to stake a tent or biwi. A lot of shelters are available too, where you can stay for a few bucks. The two times I used it 5€ was considered as too much.

Only tricky part is most of them are on private ground and depending on which tools (navigation) you use you don't see that. Which can be a bit confusing as there are public shelters too. Komoot for example lists a lot of the shelters and from there just look at the map if the shelter is close to a house or use satelite view to spot private property.

Further there are Parking lots where camping for one night is explicitly allowed too - So all in all easy 🙂.

Spoke with a few people and the bottom line was: As long as you don't camp in front of somebodies garage, driveway of the fire department or in the middle of a street the very open and friendly danes will still be your friends.

Besides that same rules as usual apply:

Do not bother anyone
Leave no garbage / trace behind
Leave the place in better shape then before (collect garbage...)

So pretty much nothing special to you out there bound by starfleet regulations or the Jedi codex 😁.

Speaking of nice danes. At the port in Hou I met Jan - he is working for the redery running the ferry. We talked a bit and as he told me that he lives on the island I was about to ship to an invitation followed - one that I gladly accepted. He called his wife announcing my arrival.

In his garden there is a nicely crafted wooden shelter. In it two matrasses, better that in most of the hotels.

After getting there, saying hello and talking to his wife Bettina about the trip it took just minutes - here’s the shower and bath, we keep the door to the house open, use it whenever you like and if there is someting you need knock. That hospitality and credit of trust your given - amazing. She also gave me the advice to take the path down to the beach and enjoy the sunset - What a magical place.

Their house was down in the south west of the city. About 35 minutes away from the port. Without that invitation I woudn't have went there - So thanks Jan 😃.

Booked a ferry for the next day and in the morning left about 9:00 to Ballen to take the ferry to sealand.

Always amazes me how many cars and wagons, bikes and motorbikes fit on a ferry. They nearly double the floor size by having a second floor that can be lowered down for normal hight cars.

Welcome to seeland! That reminded me about the old oil ming rig offshore in the north sea that is also known as Sealand and declared as its on state. A welcome location for server hosting if you want to serve fishy business 🤣. As they declared their rig as an independant state they also had a homepage around where they sold titles - Lord of sealand, missed that opportunity, should be at least a nice conversation starter 🙂

Up the hill, down the hill...

...and suddenly we end up on coppenhagen.

Stayed in a nice eco hotel very close to the city center. Didn’t want to stay too long as I craved for nature - being in a city did not feel right at the time.

Still went out for a walk, explore it a bit, took some photos and the next day did some necessary shopping. Had to replace my powerbank which acts as an buffer battery for the dynamo. The old one was starting to get unreliable - had it for years and used it on all my previous bike packing trips, all the rattling an plugging in and out damaged the USB port.

After a good night of sleep and writing on the blog, while having coffee at the hotel I went on towards Malmö - Sweden. But first to a bike shop, the screw of the seatpost clamp needs to be replaced. While adjusting I had to tork it down hard to build the necessary preasure. The last time adjusting the saddle I slipped with the hex nut of the micro tool and reamed out the inner edges of the screws-head pretty bad.

Copenhagen to Malmö was just a quick trip by train for a few stations - took about half an hour - The train went over the Öresund-bridge to cross the sea in between. Would have been fun to cycle that...until there is wind 💨

tadaaa Sweden - I have high expectations about your IKEA density 😁