Geoff Jones

Last night was a bit of a shock when I discovered that the next Esbjerg sailing on DFDS was on Tuesday & an even bigger shock was that it was full, as well as all the next few sailings. How a huge ship can possibly be full so that one guy and a pushbike can’t be accepted is a total mystery to me & probably explains why the ferry will cease to operate at the end of the month.

The next choice was overnight rail from Aarhus vi Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Rotterdam etc to the Hook of Holland for a overnight ferry. It struck me as very long winded way of getting back and quite expensive too.

Flightscanner bought up my bête noire, Ryanair, flying from Aarhus for a reasonable £46 and leaving at a sensible time in the morning. Also I could take the bike for an additional  £43 and I could also could put my saddlebag in the  hold all for a total price of £111 a hell of a lot cheaper than the rail & ferry would cost and would take a couple of hours so I could be back on Tuesday.  OK their site is full of man traps etc but hopefully I avoided them.

Since the Aarhus airport is actually halfway between Grenaa and Aarhus I thought I would drop in and check out about my bike etc. Wow! the two guys couldn’t have been more helpful, plying me with coffee and insisting the bike would be well loaded (as they do it) they would even dig out some cardboard and tape so I could wrap it up on Tuesday am. They even rang the local Dabhostel at Ronde 14km away, after the website said it was closed, in fact they have withdrawn it from Danhostel to run it privately so the owners  agreed to give me the hostel keycode  and for me to leave the cash Tuesday morning. If it all works out a highly successful end for the trip and also opens up the opportunity of bringing the bike back to continue the North Sea Cycle Route to Sweden & Norway. Interestingly the airport guys said that Ryanair is becoming more reasonable when dealing with passengers now 🙂

I’m now in my tiny cabin at the CabInn Hotel in Aarhus a bit of a come down from last nights splendour but it has everything: shower, internet, power points  & bed.

So another surprisingly hilly 46 miles, with some quite bumpy stretches, on the clock see my Strava and a few pics here

PS: Unbelievably, as Victor Meldrew would say, the wind direction has flipped 180 degs to a west wind, so today it was still in my face 🙁

A glorious day for a bike ride; bright sunshine and a cool eastern breeze with lovely smooth paved surfaces. I fair zoomed along with the wind definitely helping, the countryside like my breakfast at the sports hall was a bit uninspired but pleasant enough. In Hals just before the ferry I found a pleasant bakery cafe which did divine Danish pastries 🙂 After the ferry I was going so well I missed a small section of the 5 cycleway, I only spotted the mistake when I saw the route crossing the road I was on, this led onto a bit of dirt track before the smooth tarmac reappeared around the corner.

At the slick looking Lille Vildmose centre (of the same ilk as Welney swan visitor centre) I stopped for more coffee and cake to relax in the quiet (once the school party had left). After this Route 5 descended into grass & gravel tracks up the chalky hills (reminiscent of the Suffolk walks we have done with Cambridge Rambling Club) the poor Dawes Galaxy wasn’t built for these tracks, as you can see from my Strava when the speed plummets!

After Ostkystruten the route turns smooth again obviously running on an old railway line as you enter Hadsund there is a bike counter identical to the one recently installed on Parkers Piece in Cambridge, except this works of cause! Each side of the display shows the count of the bikes going each way, it uses four embedded sensor wires in the tarmac (just like I developed in the original Scandrive). The Cambridge one was connected up so that each bike is counted twice each way!

The Danhostel Hadsund is actually huts in a camping ground, by the school, so the showers & toilet are in a block that need a hike to get too 🙁 not so good for an old man in the night 🙁 plus the MAJOR disadvantage of no WiFi 🙁 although the Three 3G signal is good and the ground does have excellent views over the estuary.

In the evening I had an email from my trip advisor, Jens, 🙂 so I hot footed it to the da Vinci restaurant by the waters edge. Excellent food although it is turning rapidly chilly as I type this sat on the terrace.

A relatively effortless 60+ miles the Strava is here and a few pics here
Friday 19th September 2014