LAND 49 I arrived at the starting point feeling well-rested and prepared for a short and intense day in the snowy landscape. There was little wind and the thick layer of cloud created an even light. The temperature was just above freezing, where it would remain all day.
The snow was heavy and sodden, and slippery underfoot. I walked around ‘Borgen’ where there had once stood defensive fortifications in the early medieval period. The area is grazed by sheep and I followed their tracks through the snow. There were expansive views of the plantation and beyond, the heavy silence broken only by the quarrelsome bickering of ravens, already busy with establishing their territories and reacquainting their pair bonds. A secret sign of spring in the depths of winter.
I continued through the plantation, first heading west and then north. The snow had created a minimalist universe of grey, umber, and sepia. What colours there were – the reddish copper beech leaves, or the yellow-ochre birch trunks – were thus made more intense.
I left the plantation and continued into an open landscape of small woods and isolated farms. Back in the edge of the forest I had disturbed a territorial dog, and I could still hear it’s angry barking echoing across the landscape several kilometers and half an hour later. There were very few cars and, of course, no people.
I arrived at the outskirts of Rø village. At the crossroads, a derelict windmill and a long-since closed village shop contrasted with a sign pointing to the ‘Climbing centre’.
I stopped for a while at Rø church, pacing around the graveyard and reading the names and dates on the tombstones, creating characters and narratives in my head.
As ever, the church was a beacon in the landscape, a place of shelter and rest, and I stopped for a late lunch. A pair of bullfinches rested in an ash tree overhead, their peaceful fluting calls resonating in the snowy landscape. The crimson-pink breast of the males glowed hot – but the less saturated females were no less beautiful or perfect.
I continued onwards, through the harsh landscape, colder now that the wind had picked up a little. I had views again of the grey and bitter sea and managed to make one last painting before racing down to the pickup point and the end of the day. Exhausted as ever, and full of the day’s intensity.
LAND 48
WEATHER REPORT – Overcast. Temperature 1 degrees. Wind 2 – 5 m/s, from the southeast. Hours of precipitation: 0 hour. Hours of sunshine: 0 hour.
STOPS with the BIVVY – 0
KILOMETRES WALKED – 13.26 km
DAY LASTED – 7 h and 18 m
PEOPLE TALKED TO – 2
BIRDS SEEN and HEARD – 31 species (0 new = 135 species in total)
LESSONS LEARNED – following waymaked paths in the snow is hard.
IN MY HEAD – I thought a lot about the relationship between information and intensity. Also, about the perfection of a bullfinch pair in a snowy landscape.
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