Day 28 - Goodbye Sweden, Hello Denmark

An early start today - of course we were at the ferry terminal far too early, around 6 when last check-in was 7 for departure at 8. “He has his little ways”, as a young friend Tim remarked once. We stayed on deck till eventually we sailed past the last of the Swedish Islands, having just squeezed under a large bridge on our way out. (The Stena ferry is a very old one with a funnel on the roof). When we sat down in a quiet sun deck at the stern we were joined by the Dutch couple who got lost at the same time as us yesterday. They found, after a struggle, a campsite right outside the city so had a bit of a drive this morning.

After landing at Frederikshaven we drove north to Skagen. (It had to be done - I have a Skagen watch!). Actually we were heading for Grenen, the most northerly point of Denmark. The spit grows by about eight metres each year. The place we parked did not even exist about 350 years ago. The spit continues to grow, because the seabed is rising, and because sand and gravel are carried up along the coast of Jutland by the current and deposited as beach berms on Grenen.

We had some lunch then took a track into the phenomenon called "ridges and swales". The ridges are the dry, elevated parts of the land, whereas the swales are the hollows, which are often damp. The ridges are formed when violent western winds throw stones and gravel up from the sea. Some of them, however, already formed as sandbanks in the sea and became visible when the seabed rose and became land.
After a couple of miles meandering up and down and round this area with the sea a distant murmur, (there had been no map on the notice board to show which walks went where), we met a couple who told us there was no way out to the sea from that path so we agreed to turn round and head back to take the walk to the point from the car park.

Our track took us to the North Sea from where we walked out to the spit. It took a while to reach but we were lucky as it was almost high tide so the water was turbulent. It took me back to schoolgirl Geography - it is the point where the foaming Skagerrak (North Sea) meets the tranquil Kattegat (Baltic). When the two seas collide, the waves come from either side to create a tremendously strong undercurrent. I wouldn’t like to be there when it is stormy - to reach the end the sandbank between the two seas was only a few metres wide and about a foot above the tide mark. It’s quite a tourist attraction - a tractor had pulled a trailer loaded with people out from the car park to see it.

We walked back towards the lighthouse along the Baltic side as Mr C wanted to investigate the German bunkers from WW2. From where we had a wonderful view all the way out to the tip of Grenan, where we had been. We walked 6 miles. The famous poet Holger Drachmann loved the area and was buried in the dunes here in 1908.

Another famous person got buried today. If that event cost the tax-payer £8million what’s the price of a coronation I wonder, in these days when more people than ever have to rely on food banks.