Anholt, Denmark

This morning I've been at the island Anholt in Denmark. I think I've been walking totally some 20-30 km today. The first impression ... when arriving to harbour, I was really tired, hadn't been sleeping much for the whole night, don't know why, but when I saw the first building, what went through my head was "they have buildings in Greenland". Wait what? This isn't Greenland. Are thoughts contatious? Ten minutes later, my crew mate mentioned "this looks like Greenland". Of course, once in land, it didn't look much like Greenland at all. I have no idea why we both was thinking about Greenland. The style of the buildings? The style of the ferry lying there? Or maybe the fact that we had been sailing quite so far, and finally arriving to a sparsely populated place with few trees?

Denmark and Sweden/Norway is very different ... in Norway and Sweden there are rocks, rocks, rocks and even more rocks. We do have some few sandy beaches, but that's the exception. In Denmark there is sand, sand, sand and even more sand. I think, only once have I have seen a lot of stones in Denmark, that was on an island Hirsholm. Even though the rocks there were pretty small, they were collected and sold for construction in the rest of Denmark. Here is some sand in the harbour area ...

They do have cars on this island, but the roads are really narrow, doesn't quite look like public car roads at all ... all until finding road signs.

Here is a small side road, looks even less roady. Sign tells the name of the road and that it's a stub.

There were some fauna on the island. I'm quite sure I heard some animal, presumably a wild mammal rustling in the forest. I came to think, that on this island (it is a moraine island - meaning it didn't exist prior to the ice age) all land animals must have been brought by humans or swum really far to get here. I saw the remains of a rabbit, the furry legs remaining, the rest eaten. Except for that I observed insects (including mosquitoes), lots of birds, sheeps, horses, I walked through a field full of cow manure, and I heard cocks. Here are some sheeps ...

What ... a flat rock surface? I guess it must be human-made, and that there once has been a building or something here.

Some random farming photos ...

Horses

Anholt town - "bygaden", that's literally "the town street", must be sort of the main street. There was mostly residental houses in the street. Further down there was a food shop, but it was open only some few hours every day. On Saturdays it was open from 08 to 12.

Hm ... airport, that way.

The airport street.

Indeed, looks like an airport. I love the absence of security control ...

Six planes parked here (the plane on the photo above is hidden behind the bigger airplane on this photo). On the building it was posters for a taxi service.

"Airport, no admission - police". I didn't even know there was police on this island ...

Here is the runway.

The largest parts of the island is "the desert", sand deposits on the lee side of the moraine. It used to be forest land, but all trees were cut down in the 1600s, this caused a lot of sand drift. I read one place it was because the Danish Navy needed lots of wood to win a war, another place that it was simply used for heating and for keeping the lighthouse lit. It eventually took two hundred years until they renamed the area from "the forest" to "the desert". Nowadays it's slowly being rehabitated by bushes. In some parts they are deliberately rooting out all bushes and trees to keep the "authentic" desert there.

This is the main road between the light house at the north-eastern tip of the island and the town. There are signs saying it's forbidden to drive there with any kind of motorized vehicles, still it is very visible that it has been used for driving. It was a bit exhausting to walk in all this sand ...

I took quite many pictures of the desert - and I also tried doing a panorama at one spot where it was great view of the sea, the airport, the lighthouse and the western radio tower ... but of course, when revisiting those photos, it mostly shows the desert, lighthouse being one or two pixels, the sea being a small stripe some few pixels high, etc, so I'll spare you for a lot of photos ... and jump to this one, which is a bit special ...

Stones? Looks like something left behind by a glacier.

I walked quite a lot in the desert, including searching up some geocaches. I did want to go to the light house. There should be a great view of the seal sanctuary from there. I checked, it was still more than 5 km left to go ... counted a bit, that would probably be some 12 km extra including some walking around the lighthouse. I hadn't been eating, I had been awake all night, I hadn't drunk quite much. There I was, lost in the sunny desert, dying from thirst, sea gulls circling over my head waiting for me to collapse ... no, better to return. After all, I've seen quite some seals and quite some light houses throughout my life, it would probably be nice to see more seals and yet another light house, but ... maybe another time.

I went shopping on empty stomach ... it went surprisingly fine. Ate a big basket of strawberries (some of them very sweet and tasty, others without much taste), and then I sat down drinking a tin of beer.

I tried visiting the local museum, but it was open only in the evening in weekends. I found this monument, celebrating soildiers that died in some war long time ago.

On the way back, the sheeps had gathered under the shadow cast by trees.

My crew mate slept through all the morning, he didn't go in land at all ... hm. I managed to catch up some few hours of sleep after we had left Anholt.

All photos available in better resolution on IPFS QmeGTU7UvKmMUpj216bE71fTnMEDX7CNDDoq86rE6grEjv. License: CC BY-SA 4.0