Day 25: Feddet to Mons Klint (Isle of Mon)

August 12, 2013

It was a bit of a sleepover party with Thomas and Karin in the shelter last night, except not too much giggling. Dodie played a German lullaby sung by her father, on the smartphone, and Thomas and Karin sung us two, live.

Headwind is still there today, and while strong it is not blowing us down, or back. I am writing this little bit in a supermarket parking lot in Praesto, while Dodie has gone in to buy water. Wild camps are great, but you use up your water with cooking. Last time we bought water it was sparkling, and produced some exciting moments after being shaken up on the bikes for a while! Sadly, nothing else has happened today, or I could write about it now that I have this little window of time. Oh well, stay tuned, we will soon go in to Praesto and see what's happening there..

The hiker biker shelter was pretty good.

We really liked the rent and the facilities here

... Ok, so Praesto was pretty nice. But, two problems: First off, there appeared to be no bakery, at least on the high street. What kind of town has no bakery on the high street?? Next one, at the bike shop we picked up two lock washers, since our stands were tending to loosen. Yes, the man in the shop had to stop what he was doing and go get the washers from a drawer. So that's work, yet I kind of expected he would say that's ok, have a good trip. But no, he charged 10 kroner. 10 kroner is $2, so that would be maybe 10x the "true" (Home Depot) price? 10 kroner means nothing to us, or to the bike shop, so why am I still thinking about it? Maybe it's just because it is or should be nothing.

From Praesto we continued south, loosely paralleling the Baltic coast. The official bike route was a little closer to the water than the road we chose, but in general the scenery was the same: small numbers of buildings, and fields of grain, interspersed with small woods. It was lovely and quiet, except for rather more traffic than would have been completely comfortable. This is, however, a main way to the ferry to Germany, and as we were to soon see, the way to the tourist zoo on the island Mon.

Ouur playland for today. You should be able to make out Praesto top right, Kalvehave, Stege, and the Mons Klint.

Just before the bridge to Mon is the little harbour town of Kalvehave. From here you have a good view of the (to Steve) scary bridge, plus also a good selection of picnic tables. We chose one as a lunch spot. Soon a small family came over, curious about our Canadian flags. This was Sonia, from Australia, and her German husband, and son. They are now from Dusseldorf. We explained about the trip, and about the blog - since I was writing a bit right then. Their son, especially, was right on it - suggesting I write the text offline first, and observing that it all must be a lot of work. He was very mature in this, for a young teenager.

Over the bridge with the traffic and the wind

The wind was really strong as we crossed the bridge, and we clung to our bikes - glad for once that they were so heavily loaded. Nearby on the Mon side is the town of Stege. Again, well preserved old buildings. These towns are typically close to 1000 years old. Dodie shot me coming through the old gate. This used to be part of the town fortifications, when it was big time into the herring trade. I guess you would not want bad guys making off with your fish?

The island is very pretty, with again mainly grain fields, and it was pleasant riding as we headed for the far end. The far end is where the big attraction is - the Mons Klint, or cliff. This is a chalk cliff of geological significance - like the Stevns one, presumably. We will only see it tomorrow.

In the meantime, we stopped at Mons Klint camping, and were pretty shocked by the price: 233 Kroners (that's about $47 Canadian, folks). At that price it's the most expensive camping yet encountered by the Grampies in their whole Grampie world. Dodıe asked what she gets for that money, and the answer was a piece of grass. Showers are extra - 8 Kroner for 3 minutes. 8 Kroner is about $1.60.

To be fair, our piece of grass does have a view of a lake, and I am typing this at a real table in the kitchen with the tablet plugged in.