Re-starting my walk for a Coast trail around Denmark
Research hike for a coastal trail around Denmark
Text and drawing by Frits Ahlefeldt
So I am finally in a train, going back to the Southern tip of Denmark, to restart on a trail I’ve kind of lost contact with back in 2015… August 20. OMG it is more than 2 years since I was there… Since I jumped on a bus out, with a small pebble in my pocket for my six years old daughter… Now she is eight… and I lost the pebble before I managed to give it to her – about time to go back
Last time I was here it was August, now it is November, I got out of the train and into a bus that should drive me the last stretch to the very southern point of Denmark. After a few minutes the bus driver asked us all to get out, the back wheel had kind of fallen off. – It reminded me a lot about how I sometimes feel with my projects. Only thing is to find another way forward. luckily there was another bus we could take.
Sitting in the bus watching the rain I was soon about to enter I though of the pebble. Picking up a small pebble from the southern point, was actually in some way the southern point. Could I do that, take the southern point of Denmark, to give to my daughter?
It would actually only be the southern to point till I took it, then another pebble would be the southern point… Crazy how one small pebble can be so symbolic.
Got out of the bus and started walking back in strong wind, heading back in the late afternoon, making it just before the sun settled. I’ve been wanting to give her that pebble in two years. Great to be back.
Went down to the beach and kind of found what might be the southern point this exact day. Waves where rushing ashore, changing the exact spot of where Denmark ended… all the time. I watched the many different colored stones between the waves till one little red granite pebble caught my eye, managed to grab it just before the next wave soaked my boots,.
Happy I walked back to the beach, and in the approaching darkness, I was amazed it took me more than two years to go back here. Some say time doesn’t matter, no matter what, more important was the tiny pebble I was holding tight in my hand, promised my daughter to find this small stone her, from this remote beach.
Can’t wait to finally give it to her
Frits Ahlefeldt: sketchbook and stories 