LAND 50 Cold, wet and grey – the cloud cover so thick that it was difficult to really know whether the day had started. I walked up the hill away from the coast and then headed southeast, looking back towards the sea. The snow had mostly disappeared, with just a few bright stripes remaining in ditches and roadside verges.
This was a reduced landscape without sharp edges, of mid-tones and pastel greys. Visually it was fascinating and beguiling, but I struggled with the fine drizzle and gusting wind. Somehow, I had forgotten my gloves and every time I tried to paint my fingers froze, and my gear got even more wet.
I entered Sigtedal, a quiet and secluded valley with lots of small woods and narrow muddy fields. I trudged through a damp and dreary silence, broken only by the lonely croak of an overflying raven or the explosive two-note call of a startled pheasant.
I turned southeast and tried unsuccessfully to find a path through the Østerlarsker plantation. From here I emerged into ‘Krækket’ an open and largely flat area with huge bowling green fields and a scattering of small farms. In the distance through the misty fog, I could just about make out the turret of Østerlars round church.
I marched onwards, aware as always of my GPS and the red line I was dragging through the landscape. I doubled back and headed towards the village of Østerlars, happy to find a good shelter to eat some food, but aghast to find I had forgotten both my lighter and the gas for my stove.
I walked towards the church along the old railway, now a bike path, the church appearing out of the gloom as I approached.
The largest, oldest, and most imposing of the island’s four round churches, Østerlars church has an agreeably stout and curvaceous profile, framed and supported by seven huge, angled buttresses. The whole site was, as ever, immaculately maintained and ordered, and I explored the graveyard for a while, before settling down and making one last painting in the gloom, as the day passed imperceptibly into night, and I was done.
LAND 48
WEATHER REPORT – Drizzling in the morning, misty in the afternoon. Temperature 4 – 5 degrees. Wind 5 – 8 m/s, from the west. Hours of precipitation: 3.5 hours. Hours of sunshine: 0 hour.
STOPS with the BIVVY – 0
KILOMETRES WALKED – 15.78 km
DAY LASTED – 7 h and 10 m
PEOPLE TALKED TO – 3
BIRDS SEEN and HEARD – 26 species (0 new = 135 species in total)
LESSONS LEARNED – chaos always wins over order…after all these years and all these check lists, I still forget the most important things.
IN MY HEAD – a lot of internal moaning about my cold hands and the wet grey weather. My daughter in Panama.
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