Møns Klint - Danmark

A few weeks ago, before getting loaded up with work for my course, I had a chance to go with my resident Denmark and local camping expert (Morten) down to an island south of Copenhagen called Møn. The island of Møn is most well known for Møns Klint (Mon's Cliff). There is Lille Klint and Stor Klint (small and big cliff) but the whole area is spectacular. We made the train-bus-walk trip down in about 2-3 hours from the city on a beautiful late summer day. The campsite was free and even had a shelter, AND was right next to the sea - yes I had a great tour guide ;-)

After struggling with the portable stove (and loosing the battle) Morten quickly crafted a camp fire to ensure the day would start as God and Buddha intended - with Coffee! Then we were off and running. Ok not running because we had gigantic back packs but at least off on our adventure.

We took the sea side route along the rocky beach and about an hour or so later came upon this spectacular site....





















Møns Klint is made of chalk, yep all that white is chalk - like the stuff you use to write on a blackboard at school. I was amazed to see that the fallen pieces (it is a bit of a hazardous area cause a slice could fall any time) are easily crushable between your fingers. Apparently the entire cliff was underwater during the ice age, and then when the glaciers receded some millions of years ago the pressure on the land was greatly reduced and the rising of the land resulted in the rising of this cliff as well. The chalk is laced with layers of flint as you can see here.
















Although the cliff has been around a long time now there is constant erosion taking place both natural and un-natural. The un-natural erosion is due to kids (young and old) heading out to the cliff with little hammers to gently tap away at the cliff in hopes of finding fossil remains which are apparently relatively easy to find although we didn't look to carefully. The natural erosion is due to any number of factors heavy rain and wind. This pic really shows you how the wind has an impact.





















In such a place there are no shortages of photo opportunities so here is one with me.





















As we had no map of the area, and no bus schedule (important for trying to get back to Copenhagen) we headed inland (and upward) from the beach side of the cliffs to the Møns Klint GeoCenter for lunch and to find some maps and bus stop information. On our way we had the chance to trek through some very beautiful beech forests. This is European Beech forest on chalk and limestone soils is apparently an EU Natura 2000 protected site. Its not pretty for a forester wanting to make money but the crooked and crazy trunks were beautiful to us nonetheless.