Wanderung 30

There was heavy rain during the night, but fortunately it all cleared off by 10 and we were on our way to the eastern end of the Island of Mon , where we wanted to see the chalk cliffs on the shore of the Baltic that Gustl had recommended.

As we crossed the island, the general elevation rose and it became hillier, which gave our ebikes a workout! The reduction gear on mine made a loud growling on the steepest slopes and highest power settings, which was worrisome, and both of our batterries were being drained by the uphill srtetches.

As we came into the nature park area, Komoot guided onto a nice trail, but one that was really designed for mountain bikes rather than street cruisers like ours. Things got exciting and I almost crashed and Monika got scared, so we detoured back to the big, broad, and slightly muddy dirt road for cars for the final stretch. Locking our bikes to a railing, we picked up an English guide and read the descriptions of possible hiking loops. In the end, we decided on walking the southern loop down the cliffs, along the beach, and back up the bluffs, as the guide mentioned the possibility of finding fossils down on the beach.

We were daunted, however, by the fact we had to descend about 490 steps to get down to the beach, a descent of 128 meters, and then return up another staircase with over 450 steps. It was, in fact, strenuous, but we were rewarded by some absolutely fantastic views of brilliant white cliffs dropping steeply into the sea.

Once at the bottom we walked slowly along a very stony beach full of ankle-twisting rocks, looking for fossils. We were not the only ones, though, as groups of Danes, mostly families, scoured the rock beds for fossils, never even looking up at the beautiful, stark cliffs looming above. We made sure to stop occassionally to take pictures, but emulated the Danes in searching avidly for fossils, finally finding a few rocks that had something that looked like fossils and were still small enough to take with us.

Lugging the rocks back up almost 500 steps was a slow process as we stopped at every available rest bench, but we finally made it back to our bikes and had lunch from the sandwiches we had brought with us. I was surprised that the parking lot was now absolutely packed with cars, and all avaiable spaces along the fence were occupied with locked bicycles!

After our light lunch we headed back to our B&B by a more southerly route, and Monika suddenly yelled at me to stop because she saw a stone circle out in a field! It turned out to be a long barrow type of burial mound from about 5,500 years BC, or the late Stone Age. I have never seen a long barrow before, so naturally I climbed all around it and took pictures.

But by this time we were both getting tired, so we took the shortest possible route back to our B&B , arriving around 4 pm, and relaxed while we recharged our depleted batterries, checked our email, solved a crossword puzzle, and in general recovered from the exertions of the day.