August 11, 2022
Day 2: To Haderslev
It was a bit of a tough night. There was a lot of noise close to the tent from a path leading to the beach and Kevin woke up crying quite many times. And that thing where you change a baby’s nappy and then he poops in the new nappy right away - that’s more annoying at 4:30.
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But at 7 am we opened the tent and Dea said “It’s all worth it” at the sight of the fjord and the blue skies, the fresh air, the optimism of waking up in a new place. I had to agree. I also had to hop on my bike and cycle into town to meet Sara who is amazing because 1) she had brought us our stove and 2) she had cycled from our community to Kolding, the same distance that we had done the day before, but she had done it before eight in the morning. And she would be going to work all day and then cycling it back home again. She wasn’t towing a baby though.
I cycled back with the stove and we got packed up and on our way. We followed bike paths through Kolding and also out of it south alongside the main 170 road. This felt safer than the bike route roads we’d been on yesterday where there was some traffic.
We took our first break in a park in a village called Taps. It was another hot day and we were a bit worried about Kevin but we found him smiling away, the fan having done a great job of keeping him cool. We then spent two lovely hours relaxing together on the grass under the shade of a tree. Then a very nice man in a nearby house invited us to fill our water bottles and gave us ice cold sodas and would have come over to chat if it hadn’t been for the fact that Dea was still breastfeeding Kevin, which made him suddenly hurry back to his house out of simple politeness.
From Taps we rode four kilometers to Christiansfeld, where we left the 170 and resumed following the bike route 8, primarily to go to a shelter that the Dutch family we’d hosted last week had stayed at. They had recommended it as a good place to go, and also, more importantly, had informed us that they had left a surprise there for us.
But the bike route was a little problematic. Not because of traffic, far from it. There was none of that because it was lots of rough trails and bumpy gravel. Without Kevin it would have been ideal cycling, but with him in the trailer we were forced to a very slow pace in order to ensure he didn’t get bumped around too much. Reaching a paved road again after what was actually only a few kilometres brought to mind similar moments of finding asphalt after days or even weeks of gravel in far flung corners of the world, albeit that the relief here was for slightly different reasons.
We reached the shelter and it was a special place. It was actually a cosy wooden hut with beds inside that it seemed somebody had made on private land for people to use. There was a lot of effort gone into making it so nice, unbelievable that someone went to such a lot of work to create this lovely place for everyone to use.
The only thing missing was the surprise from the Dutch family. We looked high and low but couldn’t find it. The only hint of what might have happened to it was in the guestbook where some Italians had written an entry the day after the Dutch family, including the words, “what a nice surprise.” So I guess they got the chocolate bar we later found out the Dutch family had left for us. But we still got a nice surprise in the quiet country roads we’d ridden to get here and in the place itself, which was just so nice.
But we weren’t sleeping at the hut, for we had already arranged to stay at Dea’s sister’s house a further nine kilometers away in Haderslev. To get there we rejoined the 170 and rode into town. We were a kilometre and a half from our goal when with excellent timing Kevin started crying. He had been as good as gold all day and it was unusual for him to get upset like this in the trailer.
We checked him and he wasn’t too hot or anything so we managed to keep going after Dea had soothed him a bit and I rode alongside to distract him. It wasn’t until we got to our destination and pulled him out to reveal a big wet patch on the side of his clothes that the reason for him crying was revealed. It was good to know that there was actually a good reason for him getting upset other than him not wanting to be cycling, and I only wished we were better at understanding what the problem is when he does cry.
Dea took him inside with the nappy bag to change him while I moved the bikes around the back, but there weren’t any nappies left in the nappy bag, so he ended up being wrapped in a cloth, and being handed to his auntie looking like a little sumo wrestler. And thus, another fun day on the road with little Kevin was at an end.
Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 226 km (140 miles)
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