Day 6. Nørre Vorupør to Hanstholm (Febbersted).
Distance 60.6km. Average 14.6km/h.
We awoke to sunny and blustery weather. At least it was warm and dry. After breakfasting we headed to the toilet block and hung the tent out to dry. We were not the only ones drying off camping gear, up on the hill where we had camped bedding was hanging out to dry. Damae did some washing and we got most things dry before we decided to head off. It was almost midday by the time we got going.
Unfortunately the wind turned out to be unfavourable (see flag: we were going right to left) and my camera exposure went a bit wonky for a few minutes. The wind meant that we had to work hard and all day. The wind was still as strong as the night before, but the skies were not angry and turbulent as the morning of day 5. Damae's diary entry says; "Day was characterized by off-road (eroded by the rain) and an evil head wind at every turn. We even had to pedal to go downhill. Also a lot of inclines on gravel with sand underneath."
We ran up the route to Klitmøller, and stopped for a while to have a late lunch at the Klitmøller Bager. A lot of places here on the coast seem to survive on the tourists that visit and stay in the bungalow parks, campsites and holiday huts in the dunes. Right on the route we saw the bakers and stopped to buy some bread and pastries to supplement our lunch. It was still a little chilly to sit outside but we found a wind free spot and ate our meal. Danish pastries are even better in Denmark and are to be recommended. Or so says our independent test panel.
Then the sun came out as we hit the more evil (in the sense of road surface) off-road section, which was actually very pretty. The Danish route planners made use of the fact that there is a lake in this area. The NSCR winds its way around the Norsjo inland lake for some time and very nice it is. That is apart from the road surface and on the day we were there, the strong headwind. Did I mention it was sunny?
Before the route levelled out, we had some climbs in wooded areas. On a couple of short inclines the rain had loosed the sand and gravel road surface. This meant that sometimes in order to find a hard section we could cycle up, we had to cycle on the wrong side of the road. Hard work and at one point we were met by a car coming the other way. Fortunately we were all travelling slowly enough not to cause anyone any problems.
A bit further up we bumped into our first free campsite. It consisted of a small hut you could sleep in, a picnic table and a tap. The view of the Norsjo was lovely and by now the warm sunshine had raised our spirits somewhat.
I stopped several times to take pictures so Damae ended up way ahead of me. At one point the road did a sharp right turn (just by the tree in the middle) and I saw Damae struggling up the moderate incline. "What a wimp!" I thought and I approached the turn with over confidence to discover another rain chewed up road surface. Gaaah! No grip.
In the spring I had replaced all our outer tubes with normal touring road tyres. The new tyres ran a little more smoothly on tarmac and were just a little quieter. The old tyres had a sort of mountain bike outer edge profile which now I realised made enough of a difference in loose sand.