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Mette and Morten, who have lived for a year and a half in their rolling home Turtle, have been at ‘everyday adventures’ in northern Jutland during the summer and autumn. It has led them to many beautiful places, exciting experiences and heartwarming people. Now the world is open to Them again, so whats going to happen next?
From ‘Flat Hills’ to Hjørring Mountains
It’s been a few months since our last travel letter. At that time, we were in the middle of our project ‘Everyday adventures in North Jutland’, where we visited all the municipalities in North Jutland for one week at a time, exploring our own province closely.
One of the things that has impressed us over and over again, driving through North Jutland, is the beautiful nature. There are just SO many Nice plages all over the procince. It is quite overwhelming!
And here are some of the places that really impressed us during our tour: Bramslev Hills by Mariager Fjord, with it’s panoramic route, where Mette several times on the route had flash backs to the hiking routes in Cinque Terre Nationalpark in Italy, ‘Nøddedalen’ in Jammerbugt where you go straight from an open field into a subtropical climate with ferns and damp air and last, but not least, there’s the huge sandbanks around Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse, that clearly appears in the horizon when you look at it from the distance and looks like huge rockformations going directly from the lighthouse directly down to the sea. How nature can create something so impressive is completely incomprehensible. And then we haven’t even mentioned Bulbjerg, Rebild Hills or Flade Hills yet, which is also really something special!
Flade Hills is, despite its somewhat contradictory name (Flade means ‘flat’ in Danish), the highest point on Mors and has a unique view of the Limfjord to Thy. Perhaps the name says something about the type of people living on Mors? That you might as well keep your expectations a little down, and then you can always be pleasantly surprised? At least that was how our experience was! The hills were anything but flat! They have a different optimistic approach to naming in Vendsyssel, where both Little Norway and Hjørring Mountains are found. It may be a little too much to call it mountains, but both places we got some good walks in beautiful natural areas.
Fjordactivities in the east and west
And then there were the experiences. One of the great ones was at Mariager Fjord, where we were offered to borrow a floating shelter. We sailed out to the shelter in the evening, crawled down into the sleeping bags and lay there listening to the silence and to the water’s little whistle while we looked over to the light from Hobro town, which reflected in the gaze of water. In the morning we had just opened our eyes when we had to go out into the kayaks and quietly sail out in the fjord in the morning sun. On both sides of the fjord, the almost unspoilt green hills were raising, and we suddenly felt so tiny. Several times on our little sailing route, a seal stuck it’s head over the waters surface and curiously followed what we were doing.
There was also the day we were invited to a morning bath with ‘Krik Badelaug’ in Sydthy. It’s a bunch of seniors who meet every morning all year round and jump in the fjord at eight o’clock. Afterwards they drink a shot to warm up and maybe sit and talk a little before they drive home again. We arrived to the fjord a little before eight to a completely empty space, but seconds later people arrived from all sides. Then in our swimsuits, and at 8 o’clock in the water. After a shorter or longer dip in the water, depending on peoples strength, we sat around a table with shots, coffee and freshly baked buns and had a good time. It was simply so cozy!
Helpful people everywhere
And with that story we already started telling about the third highlight of our everyday adventures in North Jutland. We have met so many sweet and amazing people during the summer.
One of those who made clear marks in our memory is Nicole, whom we met at Bløden Hale on Læsø along with approx. 100 sheeps and the shepherd dog Jack. We talked to her and she told us that it was her forst week working at Læsø. Before that she worked as a bank advisor in Roskilde but she was asked if she was interested in the job as a shepherd at Læsø. She immediately went to her manager and quit her job and then moved to Læsø. It was fascinating to hear her story and admirably to hear how she lived out her dream.
Another example of a welcoming person on our way is Chresten from Rakkeby on Mors. We met him at seniorsport in Hvidbjerg, after which he showed us the whole area with a school, kindergarten and woodworking workshop. After inviting us for sandwiches, he drove us around on a guided tour at south-west Mors, where he told us about all the things we passes on our way.
He offered us to borrow his car for a few days because he didn’t use it himself these days and thought it was stupid that we were on Mors without a car while his car was unused. It was quite overwhelming, but we said yes and that’s how we suddenly had a car available at Mors, even though Turtle was in the workshop with a defect generator.
Close at the locals as hitchhikers
As mentioned, Turtle had a break-down on our way around in North Jutland, which meant we were hitchhiking around and sleeping first in shelters and afterwards on the couch of a sweet girl in Nykøbing.
It was quite a challenge to travel around North Jutland without our car, but a good one though, that actually helped us get even closer to the locals. Cause we experienced, that we soon got good conversations going on with the people who picked us up as hitchhikers.
So, in fact, we have considered whether to do even more of this kind in the future: To travel only with a backpack without having our own home and means of transport, in order to get even closer to the locals than we do when we travel around in Turtle.
The world is open to us
Now that we have finished our North Jutland adventures and have just held our last scheduled public talks fof now, the world is again fully open to us and we can drive wherever we want. Or … well, we have actually already made plans in a ouple of months from now. We fell in love with this amazing job at a travel school, where we are going to work as a destination guide and a teacher for 20-25 young people who want to experience the world as they join a community and develop themselves.
So at the end of January, we will travel to Fiji and, subsequently, New Zealand and Australia with these young people, and hopefully we will have an excitening experience while we also help them strengthen their development. Therefore, we may stay home in Denmark during the winter – so we really get the opportunity to visit friends and family before we travel to the other side of the world at the end of January.
We’ll see how long we manage the cold temperature in Denmark when we live in a car – otherwise we might turn the key and head south to find a warmer place to stay over Christmas and New Year.
Cool winter greetings from Turtle, Morten and Mette.
This blog post was originally written as a travel letter to the newspaper and online media Aalborg:nu.
