Day 6: To just north of Aars

July 31, 2022

It was a great couple of days at the summer house with Dea’s family. The first was quite relaxing with some fun beach time and swimming in the fjord. The second involved the big party with 30+ guests there to celebrate Dea’s father and brother having a combined 100 years alive. There was lots of merriment but a particular highlight was when Kevin started snoring through the baby monitor in the middle of Dea’s dad’s speech.

Another highlight was seeing how far Dea’s sister’s boyfriend could throw a Wellington boot over his head through his legs. A lot further than I could, is the answer.

What slightly ruined the party for us was checking the weather forecast. There was really a lot of rain coming the next day, the day when we planned to cycle 30 kilometres with a baby and then camp outside with a baby. We didn’t have very much flexibility at all in the schedule due to having our train home from Aalborg booked for Tuesday afternoon, and it was our first logistical challenge provided by the weather, if you discount the Andean headwind we’d had out of Aalborg, of course.

But there was good news. For one thing we would be going back east, so we’d have a tailwind now, and the rain wasn’t forecast to start until the afternoon, so if we could do the 30 kilometres in just two cycling sessions with one break in between we would have a good chance of making it to the shelter at the camping place before the rain even started. And just in case we didn’t, Dea organized us a good place to take that one break in Farsø.

We left fairly early, although as it had to coincide with Kevin taking his first nap of the day it wasn’t that early, but it was before nine. I was pulling the trailer and I rode fast to try and make the 15 kilometres to Farsø before Kevin woke up. We couldn’t really afford any unscheduled breaks if he got upset, so we needed to move. Luckily we had that tailwind, and as it was Sunday morning the roads weren’t too busy. It was a good start.

Well we cycled so fast that Kevin was still fast asleep when we arrived in Farsø at the place Dea had arranged for our break. She’d been on that brug min baghave website again and found another use for someone’s backyard other than sleeping. The promise in the description of a covered terrace meant we could take our break without worrying about getting rained on. Which was unlikely because it wasn’t forecast to rain until one, and we’d cycled so fast that we made it by half past nine in the morning.

The only problem was that Kevin was still sleeping and to get to the covered terrace we had to walk through the house. So I just went to the supermarket. When I came back Kevin was awake and I was invited through to the covered terrace by a very nice family who told us we were their first ever brug min baghave guests, and I’m sure they hadn’t expected it to happen for two hours at nine thirty on a Sunday morning, but they were very accommodating. We even got a boiled egg each and some eager questions from their two young sons. Kevin also had a great time, although with his new found ability to worm his way forward we had to take drastic measures to stop him banging his head on the concrete.

I know they say you can’t wrap your kids in cotton wool, but if you can put some pillows in their path that’s the next best thing, isn’t it? Anyway, after a couple of hours it was time to hit the road again, or bike path as it would be from here on. Kevin was a happy boy to get back in his trailer.

Again we cycled fast, helped along by the wind as we cycled on a path beside the Farsø-Aars road. It felt funny to be retracing our route so soon after we had cycled out here. This time we skipped the break in Aars though and rode north on the old railway line out of town. At the start of the path there had been a model of the sun and we noticed that along the way there were tiny little planets on plinths. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars came along in quick succession and were so small that I thought they had actually been stolen or something. It wasn’t until some time later, almost out of Aars, when we passed a larger Jupiter, that we understood. The sizes of the model planets was relative to their real sizes, and presumably to the large sun we’d seen at the start, and they were also spaced out relative to their real distance from the sun.

We left town and cycled the three kilometres to the forest campsite where we had slept before, passing Saturn on the way, and then Uranus just before the camp. It felt fun to be journeying out to the far reaches of the solar system, which brought to mind the sci-fi movie Ad Astra, in which Brad Pitt does just that in search of his long lost father, a movie which if you haven’t seen yet may I in the strongest possible terms advise you not to.

Kevin began to stir just past Uranus and there was a little bit of a panic about if he might get upset before we made it to the shelter, but we need not have worried. His smile when I opened up the trailer was even bigger than when we’d set off from Farsø.

We had reached our goal, and we had done it by one in the afternoon before the rains. This felt like a big victory, and the fact that we could do 30 kilometres by that time meant we could do quite a bit more in a day if we ever needed to. But for now it was time to rest. Well it was for Dea and Kevin, perhaps. It was time for me to cycle back into Aars to get some wet wipes as we were running short, which was fine apart from on the way back when I thought I was coming up to Uranus and it turned out to be Saturn. But I made it back eventually, and still plenty of time before the rain.

Back here again. Deep space. These jokes are going to work better when Kevin can understand them.

The rain didn’t actually arrive until five, which coincidentally was also when our friends arrived. We had first met Ann and Simon in Turkey five years ago. They live in Sweden and were now on a driving holiday around Denmark. Due to the timing of our trips it somehow made most sense to meet here at the edge of the solar system in the rain. But it was fun to see them, especially as they too have recently had a new addition to their adventure family. Leona was born two and a half months ago, and looked so tiny compared with our Kevin.

And a little less happy (only in this picture, she’s actually a very happy baby).

It was a nice evening with good company, comparing notes on babies and how to keep having adventures with them (Ann and Simon are keen hikers and touring cyclists), as we hid from the rain. We then went and camped in our respective tents, and it was no problem for Kevin to sleep in the rain. If anything, the sound of the rain probably helped drown out the noise of other babies from our quite-close-together tents, and it was a fine night. We had been worried about how this rainy day would go, but it had turned out to be yet another great day on the road with our wonderful little boy.

Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 112 km (70 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	16
Comment on this entry	Comment	0