We continued up the coast to Løkken, a shuttered holiday town with a fabulous long beach of squeaky fine sand, backed by towering sand dunes. Near the town the beach was pretty busy, with a truck removing beach huts to winter storage, lots of walkers, cyclists, people daringly driving a red Fiat on the wet sand and a couple of people on trailbikes.
A group of young Germans were standing around a seal pup which was on the beach just above the surf. It looked very healthy and didn't seem at all worried by the attention, and when we walked back later it had disappeared so we guess it was just having a rest.
Just north of the town, the beach is littered with the remains of a huge second world war concrete fortress. Some are still high up in the dunes, peeking out of the sand, others have been undermined by the sea and slipped down as a massive concrete monolith, lying at crazy angles in the sand. Some are obvious gun emplacements, others' functions are less clear. Concrete steps and passages lead in all directions, often blocked by drifts of sand, some ending in a 'Clanger' style porthole on the blockhouse roof.
On the blockhouses we found the first substantial collection of Danish graffiti, some very odd; someone had written words like 'Gillette', 'Volvo', 'Clearasil' and 'Commodore 64' neatly on the blockhouse walls, each with an arrow pointing upwards. Even more unusual, the whole of 'Shall I compare thee to a summers day' was written out on the wall of a narrow concrete passageway.
None of the photos we took of this complex could capture the scale of it. It needs a satellite view to see its full extent.
Next stop was Hirtshalls, approaching the northern tip of Jutland. Danish camp sites have been excellent but we've been paying a lot for facilities we don't really need. We found a website that reassured us that overnight parking (as distinct from camping) was allowed in Denmark. If you stop for one night in a motorhome and all your activities are inside it (you don't hang out washing, put chairs out, wind out your awning etc.) it's considered to be parking rather than camping. A similar distinction exists in Spain. The website recommended Hirtshalls' beachfront carpark as a place to spend the night, and it was indeed a lovely, quiet place to stay.
Hirtshalls is a modern working fishing port, very different from Løkken, with its quay crowded with sturdy looking fishing boats. Consequently it's a little livelier out of season, although the streets were pretty quiet during the evening as the rain rattled in from the North Sea. Our local pub, the Skipperkroen, was advertising live music from Jesper Hostrup so we went in to sample Friday night in Hirtshalls.
The massive laughing barman in his Paris Hilton T-shirt was the first Dane we've met without even a smattering of English. A small crowd of weather-beaten people stood at the bar; almost everyone drinking bottles of Tuborg and smoking as if they were burning cables. It was quite like a pub from the past. Everyone had a jolly evening but we have no photos, for obvious reasons - we got stared at quite a bit as it was.
The band started just after ten; two bearded blokes with guitars and Stetsons. What we can remember of the set list; 'The Joker', 'Irish Rover', 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight', 'Help Me Make It Through the Night', 'Folsom City Blues', 'Fal-de-Ree / I Love to go a Wandering' (special request from a burly trawlerwoman just before we left) and a couple of songs in Danish. Perhaps they sang 'Rawhide' and 'Stand by Your Man' after we left.
The following day (Saturday 10th) we popped into the North Sea Museum, which the guidebook told us had a good aquarium. It turned out to be spectacular, with massive tanks containing species illustrating a representative selection of North Sea habitats.
There was lots of good information (in Danish, German and English) on marine life and fishing, videos and interactive exhibits and some real treats including three huge sunfish, a taste of fried and marinated Greater Weever Fish, a chance to watch Harbour Seals and Grey Seals being hand fed astonishing quantities of herring and a rare opportunity to stroke the felt wings of a friendly ray.
We could have spent hours watching the shoals of mackerel and bonito circling the big pelagic tank, seahorses dancing, crabs wrestling, but we tore ourselves away and continued north to Skagen. There we spent the night tucked up in another 'wild camping' spot - a carpark almost in the shadow of the windmill in the grounds of Skagen's By & Egns museum. Skagen is clearly a very popular seaside resort in the summer and boasts some lovely seafood restaurants in the harbour area. We ate at one of them and Richard tried what seems to be Jutland's speciality dish; 'Stjerneskud' translated into 'Shooting Star' on menus. It consisted of a piece of fried breaded plaice, a piece of steamed plaice, a piece of toast topped with sweet mayonnaise, prawns, asparagus, some salad and a little fish roe. Very good.
This morning we visited the so-called Buried Church – Tilsandede Kirke – which was rather disappointing; not as 'sand engulfed' as the guide book suggested, then had a lovely walk through the sand dunes and back to the van along the long, sandy beach. After that we drove to Grenen (the Branch) which is the sandy, shifting headland marking the northernmost tip of Denmark. Here we walked out to the furthest point to see the waves from the Skagerrak and the Kattegat clashing together as the North Sea and the straits of Denmark meet. Along the way we came across another baby seal having a rest and being photographed from every angle by tourists.
Having reached the tip of Denmark it's south from now on, with a bit of east and west thrown in for good measure. Our current location is a peaceful farm site about 10 km inland from Frederikshavn, where we're making the most of today's hot and sunny weather by doing some washing.
Our very expensive Danish mobile internet access runs out this evening, so we might go quiet for a while.
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