Day 3

Day 3 dawned bright and early – or it would have done had we had a window in our cabin! After dragging ourselves out of an unseasonably good nights sleep, we went to breakfast (which some of us paid for), ran into Jonathon and Nancy from the Campaign Against Climate Change and chatted about agriculture and associated greenhouse gases, and in what form the demanded 1 million green jobs would take were they to ever materialise.

After hastily scoffing down as much of the buffet as we could, we went to our meeting with the Captain – or rather we went to reception, and they rang the bridge, who sent someone down to let us up. We met him and his first officer while the ship seemed to run itself. They graciously indulged our childish behaviour around all the very expensive equipment, while Lucy demanded the Captain’s hat and attempted to take control of the vessel. The Captain explained the workings of the ship, and even let us press some of the buttons, sounding the ship’s horns and alarms and turning on and off some of the navigation lights above the bridge – they call it the Christmas tree.

We also interviewed Chris High, a lecturer at the Open University, who specialises in systems thinking, but who is a keen scientist and a recent convert to activism. He was always a green living cyclist, but has now taken the step into full on campaigning, and is a part of the Creative Climate Project. This is a mass observation project tracking cultural responses to climate science and data, in conjunction with Jo Smith (http://www.open2.net/creativeclimate/index.html).

After freewheeling very fast down the exit ramp from the ferry we found ourselves for the first time in Denmark. Despite knowing full well that people drive on the right on the continent, we still managed to get ourselves nearly killed by oncoming traffic, but were hugely impressed by the wide and clearly marked cycle paths – some of them even had a whole kerb between us and the road! Best of all however were the separate traffic lights at some of the junctions, which let cyclists get a head start on all the motorised traffic.

We plugged onward, well into the night in order to find our first hostel at Vejen. We even got a little lost on the way. Whilst carrying our some much needed bike maintenance, we bumped into Mark Robbins from the RSPB (http://rspbcop15.tumblr.com/), who straightened Ben’s wonky front wheel, and came to dinner with us whilst his team mate retrieved his passport.

We had a slightly inebriated time at the local boozer, where a somewhat portly retired policeman repeatedly attempted to feel up both Lucy and Lorraine – much to their disgust. We also sought medical advice about Lucy’s knee, as she had inured it a few days prior to setting off. Medical Advice (Ben’s Uncle) recommend Lucy not continue the trip – Lucy decided to think about this untit he morning (no priozes for guessing the outcome of that decision!)

The bar was the closest thing that any of us had ever seen to a real life version of Moe’s Tavern in The Simpsons. Having survived the experience we returned to the hostel, and to bed.