Denmark day 6

It was sunny this morning, so we seized our chance and headed down to the beach at Saltum Strand. I say down – because that’s exactly what happened. The road goes down to the beach, and then onto the beach, and then along the sand…and you can drive your car up to the sea! Here’s the A2, looking rather incongruous amongst the North Sea waves and sand. It’s really not used to it.


It was incredibly windy, which made us wish there had been space in the car for the powerkite. We have an 8 footer, which would probably have dragged us down the beach and out to Norway without any problems whatsoever. But in lieu of such excitement, we put up our beach tent, and proceeded to manufacture a rather stunning sandcastle, made from the cement-like North Jutland sand.


The sand dunes were a little more sheltered, and great fun for running up and down. We found shells, seagrass, and all sorts of strange pebbles brought in by the waves.


For sheer excitement, we drove 5km along the sand to the next beach exit at Blokhus, fording some small streams along the way. At Blokhus there were a couple of fish vans at the entrance to the beach, so we stopped by the marauding seagulls and had a look. We could have taken the entire contents of the stalls home with us, but that would (a) have bankrupted us and (b) made the caravan smell terrible for the next 10 years, so we restrained ourselves and bought what looked like some salmon fillets.

(We ate these for tea with some potato salad and sautéed courgettes – and discovered that the salmon was possibly the best hot smoked salmon in the world. Mmmmm.)

It started to rain after lunch, so we headed off to the nearest big city, Aalborg, for a bit of a wander round, and a look at the latest range of Lego. Aalborg looks like it’s quite a fun place, especially if it was sunny. There’s lots of cafes and shops (I had to be restrained from going in the cookware ones), some beautiful old buildings, and a fjord-side location.


After visiting a toy shop or two, we can report that the Danish range of Lego is pretty much like the English range – only a bit more expensive because of the exchange rate. Bafflingly, Schleich, who normally make models of farm animals, have a range of Smurfs. Who knew?

But then it started to pour down, so we travelled home, back to the cosy van. The campsite's filling up a bit with weekend visitors (who seem to have permanent pitches here), and it was quite busy in the communal kitchen/dining areas. These are as nice as the ones at Grenaa Strand Camping by the way - sadly there's just not enough of them.

The nice people at the Danish Meteorological Institute are promising only 1mm of rain tomorrow. They've been pretty reliable on the forecast front so far - let's hope we finally get a day that stays sunny...