Denmark day one: A bridge full of spiders

August 7, 2013

The next day I boarded my first boat of the journey, a forty-five minute ferry to Denmark. It was a nice morning and the outside deck was full but I went out and watched. The main thing to see was wind turbines. On the German side there were some, on the Danish side even more, and in the middle of the channel was a massive wind farm stretching off into the distance. From the boat I counted at least 150 turbines, and by the way, counting wind turbines at a distance from a moving boat is about the hardest thing in the world. Blink and you are absolutely guaranteed to lose your place. But there were at least 150.

A few seagulls followed the ferry and flew above us at exactly the same speed, so it looked like they weren't moving, but just hanging in the air as if on a string

Arriving on shore I took the obligatory arrival photo:

The observant among you will notice my bike is lacking a front pannier, which was being used as a tripod

And then I started cycling north. I passed through the town of Maribo, which had a really nice little town square where I sat and watched women packing up market stalls and children playing in a fountain. It all looked very nice, like a world where everyone has everything they need. And I kept cycling north until I got to another long bridge, except this time there wasn't the wind or the sunset. Instead I found something else fascinating on this bridge. There were lots and lots of one particular type of spider. They were everywhere, between every railing. All one type of spider, it had an absolute monopoly on the bridge. There were big grown up ones and tiny little baby ones and they were everywhere, thousands of them. I looked at them and wondered about how they came to live here in such numbers. I didn't know what the spider was called, but I would call it 'the bridge spider'

The bridge spider! There is one big one in this picture, but also two small ones if you can see, one bottom right, one at the top

Cycle touring in Denmark is pretty easy because its mostly flat and has good cycle routes and free internet in the libraries (hence the blog being almost up to date!) It also allows wild camping and has picnic areas where you can throw up a tent and no one cares. I found one of these to sleep at, where I had tables and a toilet and barbeque grill and campfire circle and basically my own private camp site for free:

Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 1,884 km (1,170 miles)

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