Day 88 to 91 Ferry Back to Denmark, a night in a Danish camp ’resort’, another ferry to the UK and then the M6 home

Day 88 to 91 Ferry Back to Denmark, a night in a Danish camp ’resort’, another ferry to the UK and then the M6 home

Day88

Getting on the ferry at 11:30 pm Sunday evening means 2 nights and a full day on the ferry before we arrive in Hirtshalls in Denmark on Tuesday morning – we haven’t seen a shower in 3 days and we are running low on clean clothes so the cabin is a welcome sight.

Sumburgh Head, Sheltand Isles from the Ferry

None of us wake until 11:00 am the next morning and we spend the day doing not a lot. The sun is up so we sit outside on deck for a while, play cards, read, write blog and eat and drink.

Jack being socially unacceptable in a confined space

Jack has run out of long trousers so uses his ingenuity to turn Susan's North Face body warmer into upper leg warmers - albeit they do look more like a large nappy.

Day 89

It is our 4^th time in Hirtshalls port in as many weeks and we drive off the ferry past the landrovers and campervans queuing to board our ferry to start their holidays in Iceland. The weather is warm again and we are overdressed for it as we head southwards for a 1 night stop over before getting the ferry back tomorrow to the UK.

Charlie  - watching the action

We stop at a campsite on the Baltic coast with swimming pool, rapids, slides, saunas and hot tub, playparks and little tractors taking holiday makers for rides around the site. It’s full of Danes and it is a nice spot but it’s all a bit sanitised and ‘Truman’ showish after where we have just been....put another way, you wouldn't choose to go on holiday there.

Day 90

The van's final ferry journey

It’s a hot day and ironically for our last day away Jack gets sun burnt. We do not need to leave until 3 pm and so we spend the day in the pool before driving the 100 Km over from the east to the west coast to catch the 18:45 ferry from Esbjerg back to Harwich.

The ferry is a third the size of the Iceland one and as we leave the car deck we are bizarrely greeted by a person encased in a large fluffy pirate suit. Later that evening we are having tea in the bar when ‘Jack the Pirate’ enters the bar with a string of children behind him having just completed the ship’s treasure hunt. He’s a Dane, under 5’ tall and comes with a 70’s moustache. He hands out prizes to some quiz he has just run and then with a sound system that should have been binned in the last millennia he moves seamlessly into a limbo dancing competition. He tries valiantly to whip up a party atmosphere but the music continues to jump or just not work at all and it’s all pretty pitiful. A mum’s and dad’s limbo dancing competition is the finale and Susan and Katie get up, as does a press ganged Ulrich ( 6’5” and 250Lb Dane) and another reluctant father. The ‘congo’ music burps out, Jack the pirate struggles with setting his limbo bar, half the parents look like they would rather be anywhere else on the planet and my Jack and I laugh like drains.....it is proper entertainment. Lurking in the mist of parents is a mother who clearly  limbo dances nightly, we should have spotted this earlier when she was doing her pre competition lunges and stretches. Ulrich exits early and it is between Katie and the ‘limbo’ dancer at the end but is the semi-professional who is always going to take the podium.....she gets the choice of ‘Stella’ or a ‘Jack the Pirate’....she goes for ‘Stella’ but it is not an ice cold tasty beverage but a boxed poor imitation of a Barbie doll.

However back in the cabin there is some consolation for Katie as she takes the ‘Gin Rummy’ holiday competition...although she still cries herself to sleep J

Day 91

It's a really crap journey up from Harwich back to our home. 530 Km, or now we are back in the UK 325 miles, on the most crowded roads we have seen in the whole of Europe over our 3 months away. The M6 is stop start all the way up from Birmingham to Wigan; the van is noisy because my foot is to the floor, the windows are open because it is warm and Susan and I are both thinking about going back to work. The day was always going to come but it is now here.

Day 88 Faroes to Iceland ferry

Day 89 HIrtshalls ( Dk) to Frederica (Dk)   271 Km      Total 12807 Km

Day 90 Frederica (Dk) to Esbjerg (Dk)       108 Km     Total 12916 Km

Day 91 Harwich ( UK) to Holme ( UK)         530 Km     Total 13446 Km