Week 2 begins. A day around Cold Hawaii.....Klitmoller.

The forecast was good and we had decided to do a cycle ride around Klitmoller in the Thy National Park, so we were up quite early and unloaded the bikes and straightened handlebars and refitted pedals where required, its quite time consuming and this gave the boys plenty time to play in the sites very good play park right beside our van. We were in the saddle by 10:20am and it was lovely and sunny but there was a strong wind blowing in off the North Sea. We made our way along through Klitmoller on some roads and pavements, most drivers here are very courteous to cyclists particularly when they see the wee one's with us. We cycled a mixture of roads, pavements, forestry tracks-some smooth and some rough, through open heathland, pastures and forest and even by a golf course in the woods at on point. It's interesting that almost every lane, or road, of forestry track has a name, and they nearly always end in Vej which means either way, road, lane or route so all bases are covered by 1 word.

I had planned to do an anticlockwise route taking us inland and then north towards Hanstholm however once we were into the forested sections, the Vej's were no longer smooth and there were plenty of gradient changes so after a bit of studying the map and waying up our options we elected to do a shorter loop with options to cut short if required. After a couple of hours the boys were telling us it was lunch time so we stopped at a cool wee open ended hut. Above the entrance was the word KOMIHUS which literally translated means "come in house".  Its marked on the map as a sleeping place in the forest and its sort of designed with a taper from front to back so I assume you lie in it in a sleeping bad with head at the door and feet further in. It had a tap nearby for water, a barbecue pit and a supply of logs, and separate toilet maybe 30 metres away in a wee hut. There was a sign nearby also saying parties could spend a maximum of 2 nights in it. I can just imagine what would happen to something like this back home in Scotland, it would be trashed or burned to the ground in no time sadly. Clearly the Danes have a different mentality to outdoor living. We have also seen very little litter on our travels, quite the opposite to what was witnessed in every ditch across the Hebrides on my recent trip.

After lunch we carried on and the boys made good progress, Callum is getting to grips with the gears on his bike although struggles to turn the grip shifter to select an easier gear for going up hill. Logan is just a wee soldier, no gears on his steed but he just beasts into the hills, refuses to be beaten and made it round the route with no real issues, clearly he was tired at the end but 30.4km on some roughish ground isn't bad for a 3 1/2 year old........Are we cruel parents, well I don't think so, some would disagree I am sure.

I wanted to do a wee extra loop that would  take us closer to the beach on the way back, the first part of this was some of the best riding we had done but the last section degenerated into rather sandy stuff so this was probably a mistake, but all in it was a good and varied cycle for us all. The boys were no sooner off their bikes at the campsite and they were back in the play park whooping with joy again on the big inflatable trampoline thingy and Logan showing his prowess on the climbing wall. I think some trips to Ratho might be order of the day for him on our return home, he is a natural climber unlike his faither...😳.

After tea they were back at it again and were also cutting about on the wee pedal bikes that are free for residents of the site to use, they seem to have boundless amounts of energy these days. It was nearing bedtime so Callum, Logan and myself headed to the beach to check out what was there and left Mum to chill for a bit, we were sworn to be home in a timely manner this time, however the beach was interesting and we were again longer than expected, lol.

Kiltmoller is also nown as Cold Hawaii, it has one of the best surfing beaches in Northern Europe and its clear to see why, there were superb looking rollers crashing all along the shoreline, and there have been plenty of vans around the area with surf boards on their roofs. There is a round of the PWA Surfing World Cup held here every year. No one was surfing this evening but there's also a line of WW2 German gun batteries and bunkers that were an interesting visit. Its quite sobering again here too think what living here must have been like during the early 1940's, The batteries seem to be lying at some weird angles so I suspect they are gradually being eroded away from underneath. Most of them are being consumed by sand also, however there is on that can still be accessed and its a seriously strong structure, the walls must be at least 4 feet thick steel reinforced concrete. They now sport some interesting colourful street art paintings and that brightens up what would be a rather sombre looking structures otherwise. Some day they will be gone but its good to see them and remembered what took place here and around the world not so very long ago.

 We headed back, grabbed a quick shower and got the boys off to bed, we have an early start tomorrow as we are a bit further away from Hirshals than we had originally planned, but the van is pretty much sorted to get going and hopefully there will be no issues on the roads getting to the ferry terminal.