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See here for an introduction to the KYST project

KYST 26 Two pebbles still remained from the tower of five I had placed on the beach to mark (incorrectly) the half-way point of the KYST project last week. It was warm and completely still, and again I was blessed with a truly spectacular sunrise.

Leaving the beach at Kelse å, I headed southeast, keeping to the rocky shore and passing through an area of rounded and weathered bedrock, where I stopped for breakfast.

Passing through some truly spectacular beachfront properties, some with their own private mooring berths, I clambered over the rocks and kept to the shore, eventually arriving at a large open area with towers of bedrock and large boulders scattered over the shore. Accompanied by the ceaseless singing of linnets and whitethroats I looked towards the rising sun.

While I was painting a breeze suddenly whipped up from nowhere. Within just twenty minutes a strong easterly wind had agitated the sea and completely changed the character and energy of the day. I sat further up and painted the first half of a time slice painting. Then, I had to race back to the car, and drive home for my son’s graduation party at our house for his class. I returned within an hour, disorientated and unsettled, and finished the painting – the light a little duller now as the sun shone through some cirrus clouds.

I walked on, along the coastal path looking down to the rocky shore. I sheltered behind some bushes and painted the impossible pink of a Japanese rugosa rose, an invasive ubiquitous alien species on Bornholm’s coast.

Continuing along the path I passed through some small wooded glades carpeted with yellowed and dying wild garlic – a catastrophic vision, as though the land had been flooded and scoured by a huge tidal wave. The path was high above the sea now and I tried to make some forays down to the coast but the going was difficult. Eventually I arrived at Randkløve – a vast open area with huge fissures and fractures in the gneiss bedrock. Incredibly, it was my first time here and I relished the sublime spectacle of the waves crashing into the angular rocks (see top). I sketched the gulls gliding on the on-shore wind

The visibility was fantastic, and the familiar silhouette of the islands of Christiansø and Frederiksø on the horizon less than 20 km distant, was particularly clear from my clifftop vantage point. With my telescope, incredibly, I could make out individual windows on the houses. I imagined the island’s 100 or so inhabitants going about their daily business, all of them encompassed within the arc of my telescope’s eye.

After a short sleep in the sun, it was time to push on. The path now was completely divorced from the coast, passing through a wild and unkempt wood. I walked past the remnants of a once glorious but now overgrown garden, and the whole area seemed somewhat melancholic and secretive. Eventually I managed to find a path down to the coast and yet another private mooring wharf. Here I made a sketch of the wild flowers in the sheltered coastal meadow (marsh woundwort and wild carrot).

Far from the main road and hidden from the coastal path with the waves crashing into the jagged rocks, the area retained a slightly eerie sense of otherness, but also of faded glory. I painted some cormorants huddled atop an impressive rock feature known as ‘white hat’, the sea and light breathtaking.

With my telescope, I had a better view of the cormorants.

I finished the day by walking away from the coast, up the gentle incline towards the main road. Glad for the distance and the sense of space, I looked back towards the sea over the ripened fields and the wooded coastal path, and I witnessed the kaleidoscopic colours of the setting sun. I had reached the true half way point of the KYST project.

KYST 26

Weather report = Sunny periods throughout the day. Temperature between 20°C in the early morning and down to 15°C in the evening. Wind from 2 and up to 9 m/s from the east. Visibility: fantastic. Hours of sunshine: 10 hours.

Lessons learned – don’t forget your lighter or matches, or you’ll be very, very hungry.

Stops with the M60 = 0

Kilometers walked = 9.46 km

Day lasted = 17 hours, 31 minutes (going down again…)

Birds seen and heard = 32 species (0 new ones = running total 97) definitely tailing off now…

Other stuff = what are the rules regarding private land in regards to the coastline in Denmark? How is it possible that so much of the coastline is open to all, and yet there are some areas fenced off?

People talked to = 1

Snakkede med = 1

In my head – My son’s graduation – enormous pride mixed with bewilderment and lack of understanding of the local customs regarding graduation. The World Cup. The incoming invasion of English family guests in the summer. I know I will be walking in Svaneke when they come. Each week I note how much closer I am to Svaneke when I look down the coast.