Saturday, June 6 - last day in Thy

We drive across to Nykøbing on the Island of Mors. Today is the annual Shellfish Festival which is a beaut coincidence for us. First of all, we are taken across the water in a couple of barges to the Shellfish Centre for a guided tour. We are shown around the different departments where shellfish is actually grown and some experiments at growing new species are undertaken.

Life in the breeding tank

A decent catch of mussels

We get back into the town on the barges and are free to roam around and pick what shellfish we want to eat for lunch. The choice is great and stomachs too small to try everything. People are as thick on the ground as sardines in a tin, especially in front of the food stalls. Lunch is a very hard earned affair but absolutely wonderful.

Mussels

Local oysters, much larger and flatter than most

We are taken back in the bus to have a little time with our hosts before going out for the farewell party at Thy-Mors Energy.

Presentation time again. I have been assured that this will be a very high tech place with experts at hand. That is all I the information I get. A little skeptical, I made sure I had the presentation and the music on my little laptop and working properly, thus burning some more midnight oil last night.

Our perceptive chauffeur Louis either picked up on my misgivings or had similar ones himself. He spent some of his precious night hours - having worked all day - downloading a Microsoft conversion programme onto his laptop. While we visit the shellfish center, he downloads the presentation to his laptop.

When I get back to the bus he says the conversion programme is being complicated about starting the show up. So I have a bit of a fiddle with his laptop while he drives us back. Whilst I am not able to fix anything, at least I can figure out how to start the show in a roundabout sort of way.

When we arrive at the Energy place in the evening we find indeed everything high tech, except the only available computer - and no expert around either. So we start setting things up ourselves. Louis gets the presentation working and even figures out how to close the curtains. But the sound system makes no sound. There is a two man band set up in the other corner, so we get them to hook my laptop up to their loudspeakers.

Everything is ready to roll. But we have both missed out on the guided tour through the works. Just as well we have been told earlier that there are no fossil fuel power stations in Thy. In fact enough wind energy gets produced in the area that some can be exported to other regions. At least I know that much now.

Dinner is another fabulous buffet. The band is playing, the speeches are kept to a minimum. We are having a good time. Show time comes and both laptops are fast asleep and have to be woken up again. Grrrr... The band is obliging enough to entertain the audience with another piece of music. Finally, the big moment. Curtains close, music and presentation start rolling. All seems well until we notice that the slideshow runs faster than it should. Trust Microsoft to come up with a conversion to one of their own programmes that only does part of the job. Still, those who have not seen it before won't know any different. At least we have a presentation at all, mostly thanks to Louis, the only one who cared enough to help out. Here's three cheers to Louis, the 29th member of our team.

Neither of us is an expert, but we strongly agree on: If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well!

The evening ends with the exchanging of banners and a lot of singing. The Danes sing, the Aussies sing and we all sing together. The Danes sure know how to throw a good party.

Sue Wines and James Auld have cooked up a new song about the Danes. It is very new and very unpractised but the Danes love it anyway.