• 399 m climbing

• 54.73 km

Byrupbanestien

Much like yesterday, the first part of the day is heading out along a disused railway track, this time Byrupbanestien (in Danish). The railway stopped running in 1968 and today is replaced by a cycle-walking track almost entirely on asphalt running 61km between Silkeborg and Horsens.

Brædstrup is the first town we came to. In the last few years the centre has undergone a big transformation. Speaking to some of the people in the town, it never really had much of a town centre but now the old station area has been changed to cafes and playgrounds making it a great place for a stop.

The next highlight of the old railway line is Den Genfundne bro (The Rediscovered Bridge), which is an old lattice bridge from 1899 which, strangely, really was rediscovered. The key is that it really did disappear: in 1929 the railway was being upgraded for bigger trains but the bridge couldn’t cope, so instead of strengthening the bridge the engineers buried it in what became a big dam across the river (Gudenå, the longest in Denmark). In 2013 the local municipality removed thousands of cubic metres of sand, stone and gravel, repairing the original bridge to give trout a free run of the river again and creating a recreational area for the public. The story and good pictures of how it originally looked and how it looked just before restoration are available in Danish on a few news sites.

After the bridge, we took the railway path all the way Ostbirk where we continued East towards the higher grounds. The route towards Horsens turns roughly South at this point.

Møllehøj, 171m

Climbing out of Ostbirk you pass through lots of fields growing all kinds of crops. Its not a tough climb but does go on. Eventually we reached Møllehøj.

Denmark’s highest point is, much like Denmark itself, undersold. It isn’t easy to find, literally lies at the back of a cowshed and is only marked by an old mil stone. But its a great place to stop for lunch and admire the view from the height, all 171m of it.

About 200m away from Møllehøj is Ejer Bavnehøj (“Beacon hill”), which is a much more impressive place being the site of a 13m tower celebrating the reunification of Southern Denmark in 1920.

There’s plenty of confusion around Denmark’s highest point. For example we overheard a local Dane impressing his American girlfriend at the top of this tower stating that Denmark’s highest point is a little distance away at a point called Himmelbjerget (The Sky Mountain), which has a great name but is only 147m.

Down to the coast

In keeping with today’s gravelless theme, there’s plenty of quiet roads descending from the Søhøjlandet (the lake-highlands) where we’d spent the last 50km or so. We passed through a few quiet towns such as Tebstrup, Hovedgard and Søvind, each of which has places to buy groceries etc.

Overnight: Skablund Skov

The goal for tonight was the primitive campsite at Skablund Skov, which is right on the coast and effectively a part of the village of Sondrup Strand. This probably had the best location of any of the overnight stops, its right on the beach with great views over to the island of Alrø.