Skagerrak Sea - Viborg, Denmark

Friday 17th September 1999

I dragged myself out of bed at about dawn to check the sunrise. We had an inside cabin so I had to go up to deck 8 to see anything. The wind was blowing a gale and the clouds were so thick it was impossible to tell if the sun had risen or not. One swoop round the deck for good measure then back to bed for another hour or so.

The boat was docking at eight so the friendly announcements over the intercom, hard-wired to loud, started at seven. After a quick shower I went up again to see if things had changed. Not really, and still no sign of land. I went back downstairs to pack our things and next thing I knew we were pulling in to port. Hirtshals, our destination in Denmark, is on a peninsula so you don't see land until the last minute.

We all went downstairs to the van and before we knew it we were docked and driving off the boat. We quickly drove through town and found a nice parking spot on the far side for breakfast.

A scan of the map revealed that there weren't many attractions on our way through Jutland so we decided to take a 50km detour to the small town of Skagen, most northerly point in Denmark. Once popular with artists seeking solitude and its famed light it now attracts the tourist set searching for arty villages. It was nice enough with its yellow-washed houses and roofs trimmed in white.

After a bit of a look around we headed back south and stopped for lunch in a nature reserve near an old settlement. Nothing remains today of the village as it was swallowed by the shifting sand dunes last century. The only sign is the tower of the church, left as a landmark for shipping and eerily submerged in the sand.

We headed further south and stopped in briefly on the outskirts of the very industrial town of Aalborg. We were heading for Lindholm Høje, a burial ground with almost 700 iron age and Viking graves. We braved the scowling museum attendant and had a quick look around the museum before heading out to the site itself. It's not very large but the stone settings of the graves are everywhere. It was used as a burial ground for 600 years so it became quite crowded.

It was getting late by this stage so we began the search for a place for the night. Free-camping is strictly-speaking not permitted in Denmark. On our run north, through Zealand, we'd stopped in a campground every night. But that was high summer and near the beach. Now, in late September, things are much quieter, and no-one much comes to this part of Jutland anyway. We thought we'd be okay with our usual ploy of finding a roadside rest-place. We found the spot on a quiet road and settled in. Reflecting on the change from the dramatic landscape of Norway to the flat lands of Denmark.