July 8, 2023
Day 5: Ballen to Rudkøbing
Considering it was the first time we have slept in a tent this year it was a pretty successful night. Kevin was sleeping in the middle and at one point was turned sideways and kicking me in the back, but other than that things went pretty well. And the little tyke was wide awake before 6am screaming his little head off, something I’m sure the campers near us appreciated almost as much as I did. Well, at least it was another bright sunny morning, no need to waste it in bed anyway. We got up and started our day.
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Today we switched things around and Kevin would be coming with me in the seat for the first time on the trip and Dea would be towing the trailer. My boy and I, cycling together, on the same bike (same right brake lever) that I rode around the world on, what a dream come true. Kevin had his own dreams ahead of him though, and within five kilometres he was fast asleep.
Luckily there was a place we could stop one kilometre down the road. It was a shaded bench with the sea on one side and a forest on the other. A perfect place to stop, so we made a bed in the trailer and moved Kevin over for a proper nap. He hasn’t been napping properly so far on the trip and he was overdue a good one, so we let him sleep as long as he needed, which turned out to be a good two hours.
“Shouldn’t you go for a run?” Dea asked me. She had a good point, this was a great opportunity. There were some trails in the forest so I got right back into the Ironman training. I ran three kilometres this time in a not-quite-as-slow-as-yesterday 20 minutes. I did still look quite pathetic though, as evidenced by this series of selfies I took 15 minutes in.
After making it back to Dea I followed things up by jumping in the sea. The water was calm and clear and so nice, I really should have brought my goggles and my swimming cap on this trip. As it was I waded out a bit, ducked my head in, came back up, saw a jellyfish, and scarpered back to shore.
When Kevin was awake we put him back in the seat and continued along the bike route into Svendborg, where we needed to take a big bridge. Denmark is made up of a lot of islands you see - at the start of the trip we had crossed a bridge onto one of the largest, Fyn, and we had been cycling across that so far. But now it was time to leave Fyn and cross a bridge onto a smaller island, Tåsinge. As we made our way up onto the bridge we could see below us a big group of dozens of hikers. There had also been many passing through the campsite the previous evening and so we knew they were taking part in something called the Fjallraven Classic, an organised event where 1000 people were hiking 75 kilometres over a set route over the course of three days. It looked really interesting to do such a hike with so many people and certainly got some thoughts stirring in my head about future adventures. But from our position on the bridge we looked down on one of the rest stops on the way and I was reminded of a Where’s Wally image I remembered from my childhood with hikers everywhere, some lazing on the grass, eating, stretching, pulling their bags on and moving on.
Unfortunately Kevin got a bit upset on the bridge for some reason. Luckily we weren’t far from our planned next stop where we took a break at a school playground. He was soon in a better mood and I took the chance to get some supplies at a nearby supermarket.
We put Kevin back in the trailer for the next section. We decided to abandon the bike route for a bit and just followed a bike path next to the main road across Tåsinge. Consequently we didn’t get to see much of this island apart from traffic. And I still couldn’t spot a red Tesla.
Kevin got unhappy in the trailer. He loves cars, I think he wanted a closer look. So he was back in the seat with me as we neared the end of Tåsinge and took further bridges across to a small island, Siø, and then to a bigger one, Langeland, where we would be spending the night. There were some good views of the town of Rudkøbing from that last bridge, but I think Kevin missed them because it was at that point he realised it was good fun to lift up my T-shirt and poke me in the back. It was probably for the best as I felt like he was getting restless again and that game provided a good distraction for him.
Our camping spot for the night was arranged through Brug Min Baghave (use my garden) which is a Danish website where hosts offer a place to pitch a tent on their property. We had used such sites on our ride to Belgium last year with a lot of success and again we found ourselves a good place to sleep this night. Our hosts just left us to our own devices in their interesting garden with lots of overgrown areas and hedges making hidden corners and secret passageways for Kevin to explore. He was having a great time again as another great day on the road came to an end.
Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 182 km (113 miles)
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