July 16, 2023
Day 13: Hillested to Bavnehøj
It rained a lot in the night but we were well protected from the worst of it. A Dutch couple one day into their tour of Denmark and Sweden had also showed up the night before and were out in the open in their tent. They had it worse off than us, I’m sure. But the sun was shining this morning and the wind was blowing the right way, so after a leisurely breakfast we were happy to hit the road again.
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After a quick five kilometres we reached Maribo where we left the bike path and went into the forest to find a troll. A Danish artist, Thomas Dambo, has created more than 100 of these trolls all over the world out of recycled local materials such as wooden pallets and in this case a lot of bird boxes. I had heard about and seen amazing photos of these trolls but this was my first time finding one for real. It looked so cool, really amazing. I recommend having a look to see if there are any trolls near you, because it’s something really awesome to see and I really like Dambo’s ideas about recycling and getting humans back in touch with nature by hiding these trolls in forests around the world.
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From Maribo we could join cycle route 7 which we should be following north for the next ten days or so. It didn’t get off to the best of starts though as it went around on a road past a safari park. We had actually considered visiting this safari park but decided against it this time as Kevin is a bit young to get much out of it and being on bicycles the monkeys would steal our bananas, so we passed by. But being a Sunday morning in July there was a lot of traffic heading to the safari park and the road wasn’t so nice to cycle on. We made our own detour via quiet roads instead to reach Sakskobing.
We took a break at a playground behind a school. Dea played with Kevin (the boy not the cuddly toy) while I went to the supermarket for supplies.
From Sakskobing we had a bike path next to the road to enjoy for the rest of the day. With the tailwind it made for fast progress across the flat fields. A bit boring, but at least I finally completed my spotting things list:
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Kevin wasn’t having his best day ever. He was still coughing and seemed tired. He fell asleep in the trailer and we stopped in Guldborg to try and let him sleep at the harbour. He woke up after a while and we moved to a little rest area next to a bridge. This marked the end of Lolland and the start of the next island, Falster.
Falster seemed a lot like Lolland, except they painted a white line down the middle of the bike path.
Kevin fell asleep in the trailer again. He seemed really tired. After a few kilometres we reached the turn off for our sleeping spot for the night. We had booked a shelter at an old gravel pit and it felt like going out into the middle of nowhere as we climbed up to Falster’s highest point (44m!) and followed a bumpy track around what is now a nature area. Our shelter was nestled in the bushes. By now Kevin was awake but not very happy about it. He had a temperature and so we gave him some kiddy Panodil and tucked him in for the night.
We ate some dinner and then I went for a run around the area. I also have a cough and a cold and I also hurt my ribs playing beach volleyball (which is an unfortunate combination given that it especially hurts to cough or sneeze) so the run performance itself was abysmal, but the area was interesting. It’s marketed as a former gravel pit reclaimed by nature but there is still a lot of equipment around and it looks like it’s still being used for something, if only dumping material. But there’s also a lot of trails and things and it made for an interesting run for sure. An information board also revealed that this area was a Bronze Age barrow with a lot of those old burial mounds.
With my tired family sleeping I later went for a walk along a different path and watched the sunset. Nice to be out here, but tomorrow we will cycle just a little way, get a roof over our heads and take time for some proper rest and relaxation and make sure Kevin is healthy before we continue further.
Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 304 km (189 miles)
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