I spent my last night at the hotel in Viborg, so today I would be carrying a full backpack – so far I had walked with a day bag as I returned to the hotel each evening. I caught a bus to Hald Ege school at 7.30, and had to take another bus to get to my end destination from yesterday. There were lots of buses dropping kids off at school, so I was never sure which was my bus, but finally, 5 minutes late and as I was thinking of alternatives, my bus came. I was the only passenger, and was dropped off at the same spot as I ended the walk yesterday.
I continued south today, mostly through forest and the Jutland moors, partially covered in heather. It was a coldish start to the day with water covered cobwebs covering large areas of heather.
A moat dating back to the Iron Age has been found here – King Knaps Dige. I couldn’t really see anything, just the information board.
I continued through a flat area next to Kompedal plantation, with a lookout tower.
Walking through Skallerund Hundeskov (a forest) towards the very picturesque Bølling Lake, I missed a turn, turned back, missed orientation, and followed the sign going back from where I came. I noticed after ca. 1 km, and tracked back. Two extra kilometers, which I could have been without, which would have been nice to be without given the guidebook I’d read had estimated the trip to Bølling Lake was 13km, but was in fact 18 (plus 2!).
Bølling Lake is a fairly large lake that didn’t exist 20 years ago. It was established in 2005 from an area that had been dried for agricultural purposes 135 years earlier. At its deepest the lake is 3m’s deep and there is no streams running into the lake.
My wife was driving from Copenhagen and we had arranged to meet at 15.30. As I left Bølling lake it was 13:00 and I still had 14kms to go – I needed to pick up speed. I followed Funder Å (stream), crossed Herning motorway, followed a tarmac path in the middle of nowhere (perhaps another old train line) and finally made it to Sepstrup, where my wife had arrived 5 minutes earlier. It had been a long day with full backpack, and 36kms (incl. two wasted in a detour!).
We had planned to spend the evening in Horsens, and on the way we stopped of at the Uncovered Bridge. The bridge was covered by a dam for 85 years, but dug free and restored to its original glory in 2014. Today, the bridge is a magnificent sight standing over Gudenåen, Denmark’s longest river. When it was built in 1899, it was the highest of its kind in Scandinavia.
