Difficulties in Denmark!

Channelling my inner Norseman….

By Jon Newey - retired Architect, Blood Bike rider, Adventure traveller - with Tigger - Triumph Tiger 800 XRX

If you think about it, it’s obvious: The further you go on an adventure the more people you will meet who have already been where you’re going. Eventually, when you get to where you’re going everyone you meet has already got there before you. In that way an adventure never feels like an adventure while you’re doing it. The question ‘Where are you going’ gradually gets overtaken by ‘Where have you come from’ and eventually settles down into ‘Where have you been’. It’s in that final question that real adventure lives….

I’m up early in my hotel in Lubeck. There’s the offer of breakfast downstairs but I already know that the coffee machine isn’t working and in any case I have my own deli-bought food to start the day with. Tigger is still in the car park where I left him, tucked away under his cloak of invisibility. It’s not long before we’re on the road.

Today we’re heading north at last. It feels good to go north after a couple of weeks of going first south and then east. By the end of today we’ll be nearly as far north as Edinburgh, where we started. Heading out of Lubeck the German road system continues to be brutally efficient. Heavily-trafficked concrete carriageways are the order of the day. Slow trucks and fast BMWs are my dance partners. Quickstep. Cha-cha-cha. Mirror-signal-manoeuvre.

Before we cross into Denmark I decide to stop and visit another World Heritage Site, the Viking city of Hederby.

Pulling off the dual carriageway, we ride a few kilometres of twisties before a right turn brings us into the Wikinger Center carpark. We’re close to the east coast of the Jutland Peninsula, still in modern-day Germany. From the car park a short walk through a forest brings us to a funky modern museum, and a short walk after that takes us over an ancient embankment and into a reconstruction of a small part of the old Viking town.

Hederby Viking Centre

Hederby is an astonishing place. In Viking times this was the most important trading town in all of Europe. Boats could come into Hederby’s sheltered harbour via a safe inlet from the Baltic sea. A short wagon trail going inland connected Hederby to the west-flowing river system where other boats could head out to the North Sea. This trading route was a very effective short-cut, allowing Viking traders to avoid the difficult and treacherous sea-passage round the northern tip of Denmark. As a result, Hederby quickly grew to be a huge trading settlement. Archaeological excavations have uncovered ports, jetties, streets, workshops, defensive banks, cemeteries and burial mounds. There are ship burials, ‘room’ burials, swords,

Viking hut, Hederby

caskets, gold, beads, jewellery, coins, pottery, and thousands of other finds. The museum’s displays are all in German but I’m given a booklet of translations and there are English-speaking tour guides. The reconstructed buildings are fascinating. The café is also pretty popular.

I’m hot and sweaty by the time I get back to Tigger. Hederby is a huge site, it is a hot sunny day, and tramping around in my biker gear isn’t very comfortable in these temperatures. I’m glad to get back in the saddle and get some airflow through my jacket’s vents!

Before I cross into Denmark I need to fill up with petrol. I reckon it will be cheaper to use Euros for that than to use Danish Kroner. But the filling station that Garmin directs me to is on the other side of some gnarly roadworks with miles of slow-moving traffic, so we keep on going into Denmark. At the border the German police are doing spot checks, just as they were at the border with Holland. Again it seems strange to see this at the border between two Schengen countries. Tigger and I are waved straight through. We head for the nearest petrol station on the Danish side.

Here’s where my troubles in Denmark fist begin. Little do I know it, but the pay-at-the-pump petrol that I’m about to buy will be charged to my credit card at five times the price at the pump. My credit card company flags it up to me with a text later in the day. I’m stunned. I agree to their suggestion of blocking the payment and starting a dispute! I don’t know what’s happened. Did another vehicle tailgate me and fill up their own tank while my credit card was still active? Or did the filling station just convert Kroner to Pounds at a 1-for-1 rate? Who knows. I’ll need to be more careful in future. If in doubt always get a receipt!

Tigger and I press on. Today is quite a long ride, nearly 400km in all. Danish dual carriageways are very much like their German counterparts, but eventually we turn off onto smaller roads as we get closer to the west coast. The roads are straight and flat, so they’re still not overly exciting. Eventually we reach a point where we have sand-banks and beaches to our left and shallow sea-water lagoons to our right. This is the North Jutland coastal plane, which is of course (drum roll….) a World Heritage Landscape. Before long we arrive in the little fishing port of Thorsminde.

Thorsminde

I haven’t booked any accommodation for tonight. This area is a tourism mecca and there are plenty of campsites, glampsites, cabins and hotels to choose from. Tigger and I roll into the main Thorsminde campsite and there’s plenty of free space. We check in and soon my tent, Big Agnes, gets her first airing since we left the Isle of Man. There’s no café here, but I have food with me and there’s a kitchen where I can cook it. There’s a pool, there’s a beach, there’s a sunset. It would be very relaxing if I didn’t have to spend an hour on the phone to my credit card company. Ah the joys and complexities of modern-day international travel!

Next morning I have a lazy start. Routine tasks are necessary such as washing my clothes (the campsite has a laundry), oiling Tigger’s chain and stocking up on food supplies. These occupy me all morning. Then I decide to take Tigger for a spin to explore the region. We head for Filso, where there’s an interesting wetland nature reserve. The land was farmland as little as ten years ago, but has been re-wilded (re-wetted?) and is now a lagoon filled with wildlife. There’s an architecturally-interesting visitor centre and a suspended ‘ellipse’ walkway that goes out over the lagoon. At first Garmin takes me to the wrong side of the lagoon. I only realise it when the gravel track we’re bundling along has a chain slung across it. Eek. The ABS doesn’t work on gravel! Tigger skids to a stop  with the chain stuck between his front mudguard and the front tyre. That was a close one. I pause. Turn Tigger round, prod Garmin sternly, and we set off for the other side of the lagoon.

Ten minutes later we arrive at the ‘Ellipse’. My troubles in Denmark just keep on coming: Like a fool I drop one of my video cameras over the edge of the ellipse and watch in slow motion as it disappears beneath the surface of the lagoon. Gloop.

Gone forever. And it had my best microphone attached to it too! I wish I knew some rude words in Danish. Maybe by the time I leave Denmark I’ll have invented a few…

Back in Thorsminde I fly my drone over the beach at sunset. Lovely. I download the video files and find that the files are corrupted so the videos won’t run. Uhofligt ord!! I invent more Danish rude words. Time for food. The only café in Thorsminde is a fish and burger bar. A plate of fisk ‘n chips helps to cheer me up. Time for bed. Let’s hope for better things tomorrow! Then it starts raining.

I’m awake by 7am.  It is colder than yesterday and there’s a foggy haze over the campsite. The campsite owner hands me my order of bread rolls. She cheerfully wishes me a good morning and she has a smile that is brighter than the sun so that sets me off in a better mood. Today Tigger and I have a relatively short ride up to Hirtshals, the northernmost tip of Denmark. That’s where the ferry goes to Iceland. I encourage Garmin to take us on some small roads hoping for a less somniferous ride. The small roads are a bit more interesting than the dual carriageways, but the landscape is still flat and featureless and the roads are dead straight, so it’s not the most astounding day’s riding I’ve ever had. A llama standing imperiously on a hump in the ground beside the road is the most remarkable thing I see all day.

The monotony is briefly broken by a twenty-minute ferry ride across a small inlet. At first I can’t find where to go to get on board – Garmin simply saying ‘now board the ferry’ - but a kindly Dane in a grey car beckons me and by use of international sign language tells me to follow him. Down a back road and along a gravel track and Ta Dah, there’s the ferry. Brilliant. There’s an automatic kiosk for buying tickets. It is a silent electric ferry, all very efficient in an unassuming Danish sort of way. Two men, one German and one Dutch, both admire Tigger. They’re both on separate holidays with families and in-laws and have both given up on their motorcycling youth. When I say I’m on a solo road-trip for ten weeks they each take a deep breath and glance over their shoulders at their significant others….

On the way to  Hirshals I stop at Hjonning, a town where there is apparently a shop that sells microphones just like the one I launched into Filso lagoon yesterday. I find the shop but sadly they have nothing suitable as a replacement. Shame. We press on to our hotel, the Skaga. By my standards this is a luxury treat. There’s a pool, a

posh dining room, a large bedroom and my own private ensuite. All for a bargain-basement online price that’s still within my daily budget. Perfect. The car park is full of bikers because this is a launching off point for all kinds of expeditions. Ferries go from here to Iceland, Norway and Sweden. There’s a big tour group who are all riding up to Trondheim (they think I’m one of the party and I nearly bag myself a free dinner…). There’s a group of Yamaha Tenere riders too, who are here for a Tenere off-road rally through Sweden. I unpack and relax. I’ve got a full day in Hirtshals coming up in which to prepare myself and Tigger for Iceland.

A day later we’re all set. We’re in the queue for the Smyril Lines ferry from Hirtshals to Sodvasfjorder. It is 8:00am and an ill-tempered wind is tugging at my helmet. Anything that’s not tied down doesn’t last long round here. This two-night ferry ride is notorious for the rough seas it crosses (those Vikings at Hederby weren’t daft…) so I’m already dosed up with seasickness tablets just in case. The tablets make me drowsy. I might just sleep the whole way across. Iceland here we come!

Tigger miles in 2023 = 8,024

Tigger miles in 2024 = 6,259

Tigger miles in 2025 so far = 2,289 (=3,663 km)

#jof’sworldtour #tiger800 #motovlog #iomtt #tt2025