LAND 13 Overcast, with a bitterly cold wind. Tired and underslept, and definitely not ‘feeling it’, I trudged off into the Bornholmian landscape.
Just being outside, however, soon worked its magic and my mood lightened. I walked into a small beechwood for a breakfast stop and was cheered by the sight of the small shoots of anemone leaves breaking through the leaf litter.
I walked onwards on a narrow winding road through a part of Bornholm I had never visited before. Again, I took shelter in the lee of a wood and again I painted the leaden sky, the heavy soil, the bare trees, the farms and silos.
I stumbled on, buffeted by the gusting wind on my back, and saw what looked to be a small abandoned farm along an unkempt track. Inside the dilapidated and crumbling farmhouse, a blackbird nest lay on a shelf in the old kitchen. Glad to be out of the wind I set up camp and spent a while trying to capture the rather flamboyant heap of folded wallpaper in the corner of the old living room.
I continued and passed through the small village of Pedersker, where some of the houses sit quite grandly along the main street. Not so long ago there would have been several local shops, a dairy, train station and a largely self-sufficient rural economy.
Heading south again I paused by the archaeological site of Stenebjerg, a charmingly unspectacular dolmen dating from over five thousand years ago.
By the mid-afternoon, the sun finally broke through. Sheltered from the wind with the sun on my face I actually felt rather…warm.
The last leg of the journey took me down closer to the sea again. An area by Strandmarksvejen had been left fallow or rewilded, and it was brimming with wildlife. Cranes fed alongside roe deer and hares, to a chorus of energetic skylark song. My first marsh harrier of the year, recently arrived from warmer climes, flapped overhead.
Eventually I made it to Peders Kirke and another wonderful Bornholmian church, sitting exposed in the flat landscape. Frozen by the frigid wind I struggled to capture the last rays of the setting sun. It had been a good day.
LAND 13
WEATHER REPORT – Overcast in the morning, sunny in the afternoon. Windy. Temperature 3 degrees. Wind 10 m/s from the northeast. Hours of precipitation: 0 hours. Hours of sunshine: 3.5 hours.
STOPS with the BIVVY – 1
KILOMETRES WALKED – 14.99 km
DAY LASTED – 11h and 50m
PEOPLE TALKED TO – 0
BIRDS SEEN and HEARD – 41 species: 2 new (brambling and marsh harrier , running total = 71 species)
LESSONS LEARNED – I found a new way to put up my tarp
IN MY HEAD – thankfully I managed to leave biogas behind and enjoy the day. I looked forward to an evening of wingers with my family.
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