Distance: 41.57km | Climbing: 250m – Click here for GPS Route
After four long years, I had finally convinced Elana to join me for her first cycle tour, all that was left to decide on was the destination. Although I have always craved cycling in the more adventurous and exotic countries of our planet, after my three-year world tour I was more than ready for a more relaxed holiday; a holiday where I wouldn’t be sprinting past wild elephants, fighting off packs of rabid dogs with a stick or running for my life from drunk attackers. Scandinavia more than fit the bill.
With Elana having some family in Copenhagen, and the world famous 390-kilometre Kattegattleden Cycle Trail being just a short ferry ride away from there, we settled on a route quite quickly. The plan was to fly into Copenhagen, rent bicycles there and then cycle north to Helsingor. From there we would take a ferry to Helsingborg in Sweden and cycle north along the Kattegattleden to Gothenberg. From Gothenberg we would take another ferry back to Frederikshavn in Denmark before cycling south back to Copenhagen.
After a bleary-eyed morning dash to Dublin Airport, that evening we found ourselves in a different world. Elana and I sat with her Copenhagen family at some outdoor tables beside a rustic pub down a quiet Copenhagen side-street. The hum of chat and laughter filled the air as the collection of pint glasses and bottles on our table grew steadily throughout the evening. We had spent the day in the safe, hassle-free and litter-free streets of Copenhagen and were now absolutely content as we drank and laughed our way late into the night, Elana’s family making us feel incredibly welcome from the outset.
With a brutal hangover each the next morning, it wasn’t until nearly 3pm that we had managed to rent the bicycles and pack all our gear onto them, each task taking twice as long in our shared groggy state.
Our cycle north out of the city was as pleasant as imaginable. Cycling out of capital cities is usually an aggressive affair as you fight for space on the busiest arteries out of the city. Yet in Copenhagen there were cycle lanes the entire way out of the city, many of which hugged the coastline. The view of the calm, glittering, bright blue waters of the North Sea accompanied us on our peaceful cycle out of the city.
Once out of Copenhagen we spent the rest of the day either following cycle paths along the North Sea or cutting inland to follow old rail trails through forests and past lakes. This kind of pleasant cycling on a calm summer’s evening was the most perfect of ways to start this cycle tour.
With Elana being quite new to cycling, combined with our hangovers, it took us four and a half hours to cover the forty kilometres to the base of our last climb of the day. This would lead us to the public shelters at Nyruphus where we were planning to spend the night. One of the great things about Denmark is that there are a proliferation of these wooden shelters scattered all around the country where hikers, cyclists or families can decide to spend the night in the outdoors.
This final climb followed some dirt tracks inland before we reached the forest the shelters were located within. Luckily we arrived to find the largest shelter empty, meaning that we had it all to ourselves. We quickly set about cooking some spaghetti bolognese on our gas stove and unpacking our sleeping gear, starting what would become our common routine over the next two weeks.
After this much needed dinner we set up our sleeping mats and bags on the hard wood of the shelter. We had only covered 41.5 kilometres but we were both knackered from this first day on the road and quickly fell asleep to the soothing sound of the surrounding trees swaying gently in the wind.
Irregular Adventures 