TLDR: Denmark has a cool free shelter and camping infrastructure, check it out here and learn some Danish while you’re at it. There is also a ‘shelter’ app for it (I think it is called shelter), I just used osmand POI’s. Some of the shelters require registration, I’m not sure how that process works. The photo shows my shelter for tonight.

On Monday morning I took a ferry from Larvik in Norway to Hirtshals in Denmark. I had camped right by a beach at the harbour and only had to ride 600m through the pouring rain to the ferry terminal to buy a ticket. Weather report for Denmark looked even worse with kinda frightening wind speeds.

Since I was planning to ride along the east coast, I had the wind diagonally from the back. I had not followed any news and was not aware that storm ‘Hans’ was causing a scare in the whole area. I navigated towards some of the infamous Danish shelters and luckily nobody else was there. I was cold and wet and really happy to not have to test my tent in that wind. Actually I was 100% certain that it would not withstand it, if I was setting it up without cover from the wind.

Tuesday morning I cycled straight south, the plan was to ride to Aarhus. The wind was full on from the side and at times it felt quite sketchy. It was so bad that i actually found it funny again and was in a good mood. In Hals I wanted to take a ferry for the 500m bit to Egense. After I bought a ticket at the machine, I found out the ferry won’t be going since it was too windy. That meant that I’d have to cycle about 35 km west, right into the wind. This seemed impossible, I think that would have taken me two days so strong was the wind. So I decided to take a bus to Aalborg instead. Bus had charging for my phone, that was neat. Watching out of the window, i saw several fallen trees and thought that it would probably not be really safe to cycle in this wind. So I decided to catch a train to Aarhus instead and have a look around the city.

I have never before seen so many cycle tourers at a train station. Pretty much everybody who was in the area must have skipped their plans and tried to get somewhere by train. Most trains were cancelled due to the wind but not mine. Took a room in Aarhus and enjoyed the city. I had somehow forgotten how cool the danes are, i was really happy to be here now even though the weather was not optimal. Had a many pleasant encounters.

Today the wind was still strong but far from yesterdays levels. Took a ferry from Aarhus to Odden and cycled towards Copenhagen, will ride there tomorrow morning and have a look around, then later take a train over the Øresund bridge to Sweden. In the coming days I hope the summer will make a shy comeback. My plan is now to take a ferry from Sweden to the island Rügen, then cycle through eastern Germany to Czechia then ride the mountain range on the border westwards. After that I’ll decide what to do next. I scratched the idea that riding back home is super important, over a week ago I felt like my vacation were basically over and i was just riding home, even though I still had a month to go. It bummed me out. Really liking my new plan to go to Czechia now, I might ride home afterwards but maybe something else seems more interesting and I just take a train home. Does anybody read all this? I hope that me spamming this community is not more off putting for others than if I posted nothing.