LAND 48 Sunrise. The crystal-clear night sky was being overrun by bands of dark grey and inky blue clouds. For several days the island had been covered in a thick blanket of snow and I was thrilled at the prospect of a day outside, painting in the wintry wonderland.
The car’s thermometer had shown minus seven, but I could feel the day was already warming up. I had been expecting my watercolours to freeze on the paper and create wonderful icy tendrils and feathery patterns and was disappointed when this didn’t happen. I walked around Spellinge mose – a long thin lake bordered by reedbeds, before climbing a small hill and enjoying the panoramic view. As I painted in the frosty silence, the peace was suddenly shattered by the unmistakable porcine squealing of a water rail, hidden in the vegetation below.
I continued, my boots squeaking on the fresh snow, passing through a small fir plantation and past some friendly sheep, warm and buff-yellow against the cold blue-grey snow shadows.
I followed the route of the old railway to Rø, now a bike path, past vertiginous granite cliffs where lines of snow had settled and created jagged patterns.
To the southeast, the milky winter sun was struggling to break through the clouds, glowing intermittently through frozen tree trunks.
As I continued south, it suddenly began to snow. I had not expected this, and had packed neither my bivvy nor my umbrella to shelter under.
Eventually I entered Rø plantage, a huge rhomboid-shaped plantation begun in the 19th century. The snow fell heavily making it difficult to paint, and I was thankful to discover some great new wooden shelters, where I stayed for a while and imbued the incredibly serene atmosphere. Here, deep in the forest there was almost total silence, broken only now and then by the throaty kronk of a passing raven, or the gentle fluting calls of bullfinches. What little sounds there were seemed to be amplified or intensified somehow by the snow. There was very little colour, very little sound.
I walked around the plantation, sometimes following the narrow roads or paths, sometimes going off-piste and following the innumerable tracks of deer and hare. I wondered at the difference between all the different types of woodland, but also cursed by an inability to paint in the falling snow, limiting myself to some small quick pencil sketches, the colours added later.
The snow continued unabated, and I arrived at my destination, at the edge of the Borgerdals Lake. I made one last snow painting before being picked up and driven back to my car.
LAND 48
WEATHER REPORT – Clear in the morning, sleety and snow in the afternoon. Temperature minus 4 – 1 degrees. Wind 2 – 3 m/s, from the northwest. Hours of precipitation: 4.5 hours. Hours of sunshine: 1 hour.
STOPS with the BIVVY – 0
KILOMETRES WALKED – 14.07 km
DAY LASTED – 7 h and 31 m
PEOPLE TALKED TO – 1
BIRDS SEEN and HEARD – 18 species (1 new, water rail = 135 species in total)
LESSONS LEARNED –lots of snow stuff ‘relearned’ – but most of all, not to trust the weather forecast.
IN MY HEAD – rather a lot of internal moaning about the falling snow, unfortunately.
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