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Thursday, August 1st - Orsted to Falkenberg, Sweden, 8185 km
You can be sure that a farmer will rise early, especially if his name is Morgens Horning. Morgens is quiet though, and doesn't wake me until 7:30. He makes me breakfast and I leave when he does, at 8:30 as he leaves to attend to business in Copenhagen after a hurried goodbye. I load up my bags at his gate and wave a few seconds later as he races past me in his car.
My destination is Grena, where I can catch a ferry to Varberg, Sweden. I head south to catch a small highway, #547, headed east. It is a less direct route than Highway 16 just to the south, but it has almost no traffic. It is 30 km Orsted to Grena on this route. The scenery is much the same as yesterday, with more potato and flax fields and without the view of the water. 547 rolls along hypnotically, then merges with Hwy 16 outside Grena, seven kilometres before the ferry dock.
I am at the ferry dock by 11 am due to my early start. I am refreshed and the day is warm and pleasant again. Denmark seems to like me, and I like it, but I am off to Sweden, my 12th country. The ferry leaves at 12:30. I relax by my bike, leaning against a wall in the terminal building and read more "Leaves of Grass".SONG FOR MYSELF
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume
For every belonging to me as good belongs to you
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease
Observing a spear of summer grass
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from
This soil, this air
Born here of parents born here from parents the same,
And their parents the same
I, now 37 years old, in perfect health begin
Hoping to cease not until death.
- Walt Whitman
The ship rolls away from the white sand beaches of Denmark, away from the potatoes, flax and winter wheat, away from thatched roofed, wooden-beamed houses, wild roses and fireweed, cows, sheep, Morgens and Pia, Misha and tall, slender windmills, low rolling farms and sand dunes. What next, I wonder as the ferry ploughs across the Kattegat to Varberg. It occurs to me that I have been crossing the straits between Denmark, Norway and Sweden this past week like a fly on a window pane. The ship's
cafeteria is full of running, squealing, screaming children - noise pollution! I am anxious for peace and quiet so I flee to the deck, but there is a stiff wind that drives me back inside.The crossing takes four hours. I stay in Varberg only long enough to snap a couple pictures and ride through the city looking for the youth hostel. The hostel here is
full. The next nearest one is Falkenberg, 45 km south. As it is already 5 pm I waste no time leaving town. After navigating a series of traffic circles, I find Vastkustvagen, which becomes Falkenbergsgaten, the route that will take me south. The route is parallel to the expressway a few kilometres further inland, but it still has lots of traffic and not much shoulder. It is more wooded than the part of Denmark I saw, a mixture of pines and firs I think. I see a direction sign for the youth hostel indicating that it is somewhere ahead, before the town of Falkenberg, but I get lost. I go down the wrong road which leads me several kilometres away. I have to retrace my route and try another. That proves to be wrong too. Apparently, my map has the hostel indicated on the wrong road and I have wasted an hour. I have covered 110 km today, much of it wasted running around. It is after 8:30 and the sky is darkening on these wooded side roads. Still, it takes me another 16 km and almost another hour before I find it.
I am angry and exhausted. I complain bitterly at the reception desk about the poor signage and the trouble it has caused me. Besides my aching muscles, my stomach is upset it is so hungry. I have almost nothing in my bags to eat and now it is too late to go anywhere to find something to eat. The hostel manager, Henry Johnson, listens to me patiently until I run out of steam. Then he smiles, relaxed and composed, and says, "But now you are here," as if there is nothing more to say.
At first I am incensed, as though he is being callous by not sympathizing with me, as if dropping one's troubles should be as easy as blowing dust off the cover of a book I am about to open. But my anger fades when I look into his eyes. They are filled with kindness and care. I realize he is right. I should be celebrating the fact that I have arrived. Half an hour ago I was starting to panic that I wouldn't find it, that I'd be lost in the forest on unlit dirt side road after all the light was gone.
I feel embarrassed for my outburst as Henry leads me into the office to show me on a map how to get to Falkenberg tomorrow. He lets me make a call to reserve a space on the ferry tomorrow that leaves Helsingborg for Zealand, the island Copenhagen is on. He finds some cold snacks for me from the kitchen and gives me some heat liniment for my muscles.
I am truly humbled by this point, and now fascinated by Henry himself. Frustration and bad temper have plagued me all my life so a man who can keep his cool in the face of it impresses me. I ask him about his life. He's married and has a child. He has none of the physical characteristics that attract me, yet I feel attracted to him. He asks me why I have chosen to do this trip. I say I don't know, that I felt that I needed to shake my life up a bit. I repeat a Walt Disney quote I have heard, that we are all 70% water and if we don't get a good stir now and then we go stagnant. He smiles, then asks me what I have learned from this trip. It's too early to be sure, I tell him honestly.
PHOTO 1: colourful building in Grena
PHOTO 2: hollyhocks in Grena
PHOTO 3: near the docks in Varberg
PHOTO 4: main square in Varberg
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