Bogs, frogs, fog, and sog...The authentic Harvæjen/Ochsenveg experience

Will and Toby enjoy pretzels in downtown Wuppertal

Well, we just completed another significant portion of our journey: cycling all the way from south-central Norway to north-west Germany, traversing the entirety of Denmark. We arrived Saturday in Wuppertal, Germany, where we are staying with Meghan's friend, Toby until Tuesday or Wednesday. Having crossed every line of latitude in Denmark, we saw quite a bit. The major downside of the last week of riding is that the weather has been terrible! It has rained every single day since we left Kristiansand, and most days have been significanly windy. We were following the Denmark national cycle route #1, which is Denmark's part of the North Sea Cycle Route (the path we originally followed from France northward). But in Denmark, cycle routes do not necessarily follow paved roads, and some of the "cycle paths" are more like horse trails, very loose and sandy, muddy and with large potholes.

The signposts we followed through Denmark

The weather forcast when we left Aalborg was overcast on the first day and then increasing sun with every passing day. The actual weather was quite the reverse. We left Aalborg in bright sunshine, and every passing day brought overcast skies, with rain almost every night. What is most surprising is that while it threatened rain almost the entire trip to Wuppertal, it primarily rained on us at night, so we never experienced another soaking like that first day in Denmark. But, by the same token, we never got very dry, either. All of our stuff: tent, sleeping bags, riding clothes, camp clothes just got more and more damp and soggy, and never got a chance to dry out properly. Yuck.

The #3 is a a national cycle route that follows an historic path between Viborg, Denmark, and Hamburg, Germany. We didn't know this when we started riding, but we quickly caught on because of all of the "sites of interest" along the way. There were a whole bunch of curious stone piles and hills and thatched roof buildings that we passed which had signs describing them, but we didn't to at many of them because the explanations were all in Danish, and a pile of rocks, however significant, is just a pile of rocks if you don't know why they are significant. The route did have less wind, although it was far from calm, and the rough roads were fewer than along the coast. While we had a roadmap of Denmark, we did not have a map of the cycle route, and so navigation depended primarily on the road signs. Sign posting all along the way was a bit varied- in some places it was overly marked, and in others very noticably under marked- and this caused some frustration. Deciding that we had plenty of time to spare, we made a brief excursion to a place that I've always wanted to go: Legoland!

Meghan at the entrance to Legoland, Billund

Despite a bit of rain (and hence, no water-park fun), it was a blast. We rode all of the rides and checked out all of the amazing lego models. Among other things, there was an enormous model of Mt. Rushmore, life-size people, dragons, and entire cities recreated in Lego. It was a great way to spend a day for a long time Lego fan.



We barely noticed that we had arrived in Germany by the time we rolled into Flensburg, where we picked up the "Ochsenveg" (A.K.A. The Old Oxen Trail) bike route. This route through the northern part of Germany from Flensburg to Wedel/Hamburg is an old trade route that has been signposted as a footpath and bike route. Turns out, it is a continuation of Denmark's national bike route number 3, the Harvæjen, which we had used to cross through most of the country. The route was composed partially of smooth paved surfaces and partially of surfaces lying somewhere on the continuum between stinky, knee-deep mud pits to steep, rocky inclines better suited for mountain goats than bikes. These questionable stretches, coupled with the frustrating effects of what appeared to be a phasing-out of the old route signs in favor of new, sometimes contradictory signage, leaves us with a somewhat negative experience with the Ochsenveg. However, it was very scenic, nearly car-less (tractors were more prevalent), and now we do indeed recognize the struggle that ox-herders went through before trucks and trains hauled their livestock, so that's something. When we had covered almost 9/10ths of the trail, in Rendsburg, Germany, we found a bookstore that had a map of the entire cycle route that we had just ridden. So for the two days of the trip we had a proper map, filled with insights about the sights to see along the way. Unfortunately, it was all in German! but we were still able to make use of the map.

Will shows Germany what's up by executing a
flawless one-footed backside saddlebag grind

By the time we reached the waterway that stretches into Hamburg from the coast, we had again come across the North Sea Cycle Route (the same one we followed up the coasts of France, Denmark and The Netherlands). The N.S.C.R. took us past some fancy waterfront Hamburg houses, into the center of the city, and almost to the front door of the Hamburg train station. By this time, we had cycled almost 10 hours straight covering 91 miles, which blew our previous record of 68 miles out of the water. It was 10:00 pm by the time we found the ticket office, which was too late for the normal trains to Wuppertal. So, we did what any reasonable young travelers would do... we found a vacant corner of the building and camped out on the floor of the station until 7:00 am the next morning!

Toby met us at the trainstation in his full bike messenger garb and escorted us through central Wuppertal toward his workplace and Greek food. Throughout the weekend, Wuppertal was host to a big celebration of the region of Germany in which it rests. There were musicians, model airplane shows, food, informational booths and sports demos all over downtown, and we spent most of the day wandering around in the sunshine, watching people and searching for the next cool drink or treat. I marvelled at Wuppertal's very interesting public transportation jewel: the Schwebebahn. It's basically a train that hangs instead of rests on the rails, and is elevated above the river that runs through town. It has a low footprint on the ground and is fun to watch because of its novelty.

As a capstone to the evening, we went to an ice cream shop near Toby's house, where we had our first taste of what is assuredly the most incredible ice cream dessert in the world: Spaghetti Ice. Spaghetti ice is vanilla ice cream pressed out through a pasta-maker like device into strands that look exactly like spaghetti pasta. It is topped with cherry sauce that looks like tomato sauce and grated white chocolate that looks like parmesean. Very convincing in appearance and very delicious in taste. Check out the pictures below. If at all possible (and affordable) we are going to acquire the device required to make this delicious treat.

Spaghetti Ice in Wuppertal, Germany... mmmm

Well, it's another reasonably sunny day, so we are headed out to do some biking, swinging on the giant swing, and slacklining!

The details of the last few weeks of the trip are starting to fall together, and we are excited to make our way back to France toward the end of this week.