18 Sept 2013
Gilleleje to Hillerod
33 miles

I can hear a baby crying but the playground is empty save for a scattering of prams. Old fashioned, we’d call them, those black buggies on four wheels. Nothing like the REI strollers designed for comfort and speed, as likely to be seen on a city sidewalk as on a single-track mountain biking trail. Yep, just a handful of old-school, battened down prams, parked around the playground. As my mind is trying to work out where that baby’s cry is coming from, I see movement – the pram parked out alone by the wooden climbing toy is bucking, as if being kicked at from the inside by … what? Rosemary’s Baby?

I don’t know what is going on in this little town we’ve entered, but something is not quite right. Who leaves babies out in the rain? I can tell that up ahead, Gina is trying to work out the same puzzle, her head turning back and forth from the playground to the bike path and back again. Ok, this is good, it’s not just me imagining things, the overdose of Stephen King and Dean Koontz paperbacks of my childhood reading pleasures surfacing in a small town in Denmark. Nope, something is not quite right here.

As we continue forward, I see another sight that gives me pause. Passing the school yard, I watch a young child shove another child to the ground, whereupon a third child jumps on top of him and starts punching. My guess is these are the grown versions of the babies in the pram graveyard, what happens when infants are left out alone in the rain. Yep, this town ain’t quite right and the sooner we pedal our way out of it, the better.

We’ve ended up here, in some nameless town on the Route 31, as a result of sand dunes. One can’t pedal nor push a loaded touring bike through 5 km of sand dunes. It’s a shame because the northern coastal route we were riding earlier today was quite lovely; picturesque seaside towns adjacent to long stretches of sandy beach. But then we hit the dunes and time for Plan B – to head south to Hillerod, home of the Fredericksborg Slot (a.k.a., Castle) and a very lovely campground with super cute, pint-sized cabins. We’re calling it a day here and hoping not to dream tonight of evil babies in the rain.