DAY 32 - OUR LAST DAY TO CHECK OUT THE GIANTS AROUND COPENHAGEN - Wedneday 25th May, 2022.

 Today is our last full day at Pete and Maria’s before we leave on our holiday to Norway.  One of my bucket list items for this trip to Denmark was to find some of Thomas Dambo’s hidden giants in Denmark.  Presently there are 16 of these giants hidden in forests around Denmark and we have only ticked off two of them so far.  All of his sculpture are made solely from local scrapwood and recycled materials and they are all hidden in beautiful locations.  His goal is to invite people to go on a treasure hunt, not only to see these wonderful sculpture, but also to discover the hidden gems in nature…

All six sculptures  in Copenhagen are made from scrap wood with the help of local volunteers, and is the first chapter of Thomas Dambo’s ongoing story: “The great story of the little people and the giant trolls”.

The project wants to bring art out of the museum, show the beautiful and often overlooked nature spots, and at the same ti Description (optional)me give an exciting and different experience.

As Pete had started his holidays, he decided to join us for at least a couple of our treasure hunts.  He took his own car as he needed to get back to pick up the boys from børnehave before we needed to be back.

When looking for the giants, you don't get an exact location... You get a general location and then you must go walking through the adjoining forest to find your giants...

Beautiful forests in Denmark...

One of the things we love the Danes is that the love the great outdoors and they love encourage folk to get out and enjoy the great out doors.  On our walk to find out first giant, we walked along the river bank and came across this hiker's hut.  This are built for overnight accomodation for those either hiking through the forest or riding through the countryside. These little huts give you somewhere to sleep where you are protected from the elements and they are all over the country.  These ones were in Copenhagen itself.

Each overnight shack had their own fire pit too.

We continued along the banks of the river until a little creek where we came across our first giant...

The first giant we met was Teddy Friendly.  He was been  made from all local scrapwood,  including cut down  trees, which had been used for his fur.  He is standing at a water stream at a lake holding out his hand o a to help people to cross.

The Thomas Dambo team had help from a local activation centre when building teddy.  The centre provided four unemployed people and a teach to assist in the building.  The teacher's name was Teddy, he was a super friendly and hardworking guy, and together with his team he made a huge effort, therefore Thomas Dambo decided to name the sculpture after him.

Crossing the creek...

We just loved these guys.. I'm so glad that Pete insisted that we should tick it off our list today.  We have six to find in Copenhagen, although, I am pretty sure we will only manage to tick half of them off our list this visit...  We got a bit carried away with the camera and took loads of photos...

It was actually nice that we got to have this time out with Pete.  He has been pretty much working the whole time we have been over here, other than for the long weekend we went to Funen.  We are looking forward to our week away with Pete, Maria and the children next week in Norway...
 

Photo of the three of us taken with Teddy...

Me with my big boy...

We took a short cut back across the paddock to find the car rather than the rather long way we had walked along the river edge...

The paddock was covered in lovely wildflowers.  It really is a beautiful time of year here in Denmark...

Wild flower out at this time of year...

And the dandelions were prolific...

Peter raced back to the car ahead of us as he wanted to go and pick up some meat from somewhere close by.  He set out GPS to the rough location of where we were to find our second giant and he was going to meet us in the car park there.   

 

Wildflowers everywhere..

We arrived a litte before him and had no idea where to even start looking for this Giant,  We knew he wa on a hill somewhere and in the end stopped a local who was out riding his bike to ask him for directions but he had no idea there was even a giant in the region never lone close by.  

We headed off down a track without any real idea where we were heading when we got a call from Pete to say he had arrived. Apparently we were heading in the right direction and it wasn't long before he caught up with us.  

There was quite a hill to climb to find our Giant and Pete was pretty kind to me and took me around the other side of the hill to climb it as it wasn't quite as steep.

 We found the Giant and this one was called "Thomas on the Mountain".  He had found agreat place to chill out on the top of a hill.  From here he (and we) had a great view of the municipality of Albertslund.  Thomas's legs are long and a they serve as a great seat that you can sit and relax after your climb up the hill...  I certainly made good use of his legs...

  Again this giant sculpture was made solely from local scrapwood which had been scavenged by Thomas Dambo team.  To build the sculpture the team had help from a group of young volunteers from a local school as well as a couple of seniors.    This giant was named after one of Thomas Dambos intern also named Thomas, who has been a huge part of the  Forgotten Giants project, and helped create all six sculptures.

His legs make for very comfy seats to take a rest....

Unfortunately, this Giant had been a bit vandalized with some painting body parts all over poor Thomas the Giant.  

Pete also told us that there has been a few issues with the local council in regards to the Giants.  They were very happy to have Thomas Dambo construct them in their municipality but they really wanted him to be resonsible for all the up keep and maintenance of these friendly giants and he is not prepared to do that as he is busy travelling the world creating these giants,..

Our photo taken with Thomas...

The views from up here were pretty good...

There were a group of tourists on bikes arrive whilst we were there also.    There are lot of riding track around here and we had come across quite a few folk on their bikes...

We could see some heavy rain clouds building so as we had a bit of a walk to get back to the car we headed up so that we didn't get caught in the rain. 

Beautiful views with amazing rain cloud in the background...

 

Down the hill and once again across the paddock back to the car...

 

 Pete was leaving us here as he had a good 45 minute drive to get home and pick up the children. He encouraged us to go and see one more before calling it quits as this next one was fairly close to where this one was.  Again he set the GPS before he took off...

Our next location was close to a picnic area and a lake.  There was a restaurant on the water's edge and it seemed quite popular.  By the time we got there it was raining so we had to pull our our rain coats.  The rain wasn't heavy enough not to get out of the car and go exploring but too heavy to go without a rain coat as you would have got quite wet and very cold. 

Family picnic area on the lake..

This time we had no one to help us find our last Giant, but we did notice a couple of signs that other;s had erected giving us the general direction in which to go...

This giant was my favourite for the day.  He too was at home at the water's edge.  In Fact there was a little person ferry across the lake from the front of this giant and Steve and I actually pulled ourselves across the lake.

A people ferry across the lake...

Meet Little Tilde.  This was my favourite fellow today.  Little Titlde is located in the area of Vallensbaek Mose, at the beautiful area filled with wild natural and animal life.  She watches through the trees at the other side of a small lake from where you will be able to catch a glimpse of her at a distance...

Tilde is another giant that is made solely from local scrapwood scavenged by the Thomas Dambo team.  To build the sculpture the team had help for this one from a group of volunteers including  two senior craftsmen, one of which was aged 86, and a couple of locals inclding Tilde, from whom the sculpture  got her name.

As a little bonus Thomas Dambo made 28 birdhouses inside the sculpture, for the birds and maybe a squirrel to seek shelter when winter hits Vallensbæk Mose.

We had a lot of fun photographing this giant.  I really love the way that Thomas Dambo blends these giants into their natural surroundings.  They seem so at home where he choses to build them.  I was also excited to read that he is bringing them to Australia with five being built in Mandurah in WA.  This makes a good reason to go back over there and check them out over there..
 

After playing around with Tilde, we decided to try the ferry and head out onto the lake.  From the lake you get an awesome view of Tilde holding up the trees in the forest...

Steve enjoyed taking us across the lake.  It was a lovely afternoon and we are so glad that Pete insist that we go and check out this giant.  We nearly didn't bother about checking them out.  We were pretty tired from the past couple of days when we had been out sightseeing all day so were actually tempted to have the day off today.  Pete pushed us to go as he figured it would probably be the last chance before we left to fly back to Australia if we hadn't of done it today...

I am so thankful that we were able to cross them off our list, they definitely were worth making the effort to see, not only were they worth it, but being out in the bush and the beautiful Danish countryside was equally worth it.  

By now it was after 4pm.  We did have one more Giant we thought we would get to see, but realized that it was across town and we had probably let it a little too late, as we would be getting into the late afternoon traffic and by the time we saw it, it would probably be after tea time by the time we got back if we took off to see the next one...

We will definitely be back to see the last three and they will be on our list of things to go and see when we are next there...

 

Well tomorrow we are off to Norway for a weeks holiday with Pete and Maria, so no sightseeing tomorrow.  It will be packing day and then we have to be down at the wharf to catch our ship to Norway by 3pm. We are all quite excited about our trip to Norway...