Grenen - 'Toppen af Danmark'

Grenen Strand is to Denmark what Land's End is to England, John O' Groats to Scotland, Cabo de São Vicente to Portugal and Gibraltar to, well Gibraltar. In other words they are all small places making a big point; symbolic scraps of endishness significant for a particular nationality.

What makes Grenen Strand of particular note to Danes is that geographically, not only is it as near as dammit the 'Toppen af Danmark', it is also the point where the westward flowing currents of the Baltic meets the eastward sweep of the North sea creating a distinct white topped line of wavelets at the end of the sand spit.  

The thing to do is to stand with one foot in the North Sea and the other in the Baltic. It has become a kind of national pilgrimage leading to an orderly queue of folk waiting to do it.

Anything more ambitious than a gentle paddle is banned due to the dangerous currents hereabouts. Denmark has a small population as it is, I suppose the authorities are a bit wary of it shrinking even more.

Gill, being the most rational person I have ever known, called into the question the entire thing, speculating that the actual white line of waves could be the result of the influence of the sand spit on the shallow inshore water and not the action of ocean currents. However, after further consideration and a period of intense wave gazing she then proposed that the sand spit itself was probably formed by the currents, so the wavelets were an indirect effect of the meeting of the two seas. Thus the patriotic plodgers were not exactly wrong, merely under a misapprehension concerning the complexity of the wave forces at work.

It was a romantic moment, I reminisced fondly how in the early days of our relationship I had stood in the freezing cold North Sea with my trousers rolled up to the knees holding a 3m pole with a long piece of string attached to it while Gill, holding the other end, repeatedly pegged it into the beach, each time making a careful note of the angle. One of her final pieces of work as she trained to be Geography teacher involved the mechanics of beach formation, and since we lived in Alnmouth its particularly beautiful beach provided a perfect place for primary research concerning gradients.

Having considered the wave mechanics here at Grenen, Gill then turned her attention to topography, repeating the assertion that the actual most northerly point in Denmark was not the sand spit with the wavelets, but a more underwhelming imperceptible bulge in beach about 700m to the west. We decided to walk to it. Apart from two figures in the distance we had the place to ourselves. I wondered if the other couple contained an ex-geography student too.

The meeting of the water is not the only visitor attraction at Glenan Strand. The car park, about a 20 minute walk from the point itself is next to a big lighthouse, some impressive WW2 bunkers, and the grave of the notable Danish poet and artist - Holger Drachmann. The spot has cashed in on these associations, you can visit a 'bunker museum, there is an art gallery celebrating nearby Skagen's 'fin de siecle' bohemian artists and inevitably a few cafes and a fast food trailer selling hotdogs. Hotdogs seem very popular here seemingly having achieved the same iconic status for Danes as a Gregg's sausage roll back home.

Most people walk to the point, but the aged, arthritic and the portly can opt to take 'Sandormen' a tractor towed bus sized carriage costing 40DK for the five minute ride. It was doing a roaring trade. After a quick piece of mental arithmetic based on the footfall on a cloudy Monday in May I reckon the tractor owner must figure somewhere on Denmark's 'rich list', among such worthies, I surmise, as The Queen, Peter Schmeichel, the owners of Maersk and the CEO of Arla Dairies.

We walked back across the beach, as we approached the car park where we had locked the bikes we were faced by a line of yellow vested people coming towards us. Quickly dismissing that it might be a White Van Man works outing or a a gaggle of anti-Macron protesters who had become lost, we concluded that it must be a cruise boat trip. This was confirmed when we overhead some hi-viz American display his grasp of European history by observing, "Say, some of these bunkers might have been built in the war". Moments later we topped a dune and noted the red funnel of a big bulk people carrier towering above the cranes of Skagen havn in the distance. 

Given all the tourist tat it is tempting to reflect - is there any point to any of this? Perhaps an especially alluring thought for a Brit., as it combines a lame pun with a propensity towards being mean spirited, qualities often described euphemistically as 'British humour'. 

In truth I am not that cynical, I do see a point in respecting these significant promontories, we have been doing so for thousands of years. Our ancestors regarded them as sacred places, I still think we seek them out because they are sublime, reminding cocksure modern humans that for all our ingenuity we are very small indeed in relation to nature. More specifically for seafaring peoples like the Danes and islanders like the British maybe they have  especial resonance.

So from a personal standpoint when 'Headlands' came runner-up in a national competition in 2016 it was pleasing not just because it was one of the rare occasions when I made some money from writing, but because the poem itself reflects a lifetime of 'headland hunting'. The first section was written in 1982 while Gill and I were cycle-touring in Brittany, the middle section is about the Puntas del Calnegre visited on our first long trip in the motorhome in 2014, the final part was completed a year or so later, reflecting on the Northumbrian seascapes of my childhood and youth. 

No matter how mass tourism commercialises them, I will always remember the remote, wild coastlines we visit and I will always be moved by them. Grenen Strand will be no exception.