Sands of time - Northern Denmark

TO BATTLE against a fresh gale on one of northern Jutland's endless, shining beaches is to experience the raw force of nature. Gusts this strong, says our guide, Villy Hansen, can shift up to three tonnes of sand in 24 hours.

On days such as these, there is reason to be thankful for a nip of one of Hansen's homemade specials – wild herbs or flowers steeped in vodka and sweetened with acacia honey. Each morning he brings a different bottle, fishing it out of his backpack after we have walked for an hour or so. The first is made with bog myrtle leaves. Next it's bell heather, then Burnet rosehips. We come to think of it as a sort of alcoholic elevenses.

Hansen is our guide on a most unusual tour. Who, after all, would think of hiking in Denmark? Lena Kullberg, who works in a tax office in Aalborg, had much the same thought. Fired by a walking trip to Scotland, she decided to launch the tour company Snail Trail.

Preconceptions of flat and featureless Danish farmland are quickly dispelled. There may be no imposing hills and tumbling streams, but there is drama enough in the immense skies and the restless sea. The tides continue to shape and extend the country's northernmost spit at Grenen, where Skagerrak and Kattegat meet, and the waves clash like warriors in close combat.

It is the wind-whipped sand that provides the chief fascination – not William Blake's single grain in which to see the world (though Hansen does carry a magnifying glass with which to identify the minerals each represents), but billions of them, which have changed people's lives.

On the first morning, we walk through a forest of conifers that was planted in the late 19th century in an attempt to stem the march of the dunes across the land. We emerge at a curious farmhouse, the sole survivor of its kind, with a windmill built into its roof. Once there were dozens of these, but excessive use of the land, partly for sheep grazing, has allowed the sand to invade. But some families struggled on. One, over 11 generations and on 14 separate occasions, was forced either to slow the progress of the dunes with spades or move, lock, stock and barrel.

At Raabje, the little church, built without a tower (perhaps to avoid the attention of seaborne marauders), remains. But the village of 100 or so residents who made up its congregation, once obliged by law to attend services, are long gone. The stones that built the church came from Germany by sea and then via a network of lakes and rivers that have since been drained. Local fish was exported in the opposite direction.

More recently, the dunes have been planted with marram grass. Besides halting the progress of the sand, this makes it easier for hikers to climb the dunes, which constitute an unexpectedly wild landscape. Cranes have returned to breed on the marshy ground around the small lagoons here, which keep them safe from foxes. Oystercatchers fly up and circle noisily at our approach, warning us to stay away from their nests. Nearby, red deer browse in the bushes, and I'm hoping I might be lucky enough to spot a golden eagle.

One evening, after dinner, Hansen takes us out in search of nightjars. But though we hear their calls, like the puttering of mopeds, we can see only their dark shapes flitting between branches as they hunt for bugs. It is worth being outside at this time of night, however, to glory in the long light that attracted a school of painters here around the start of the last century. The result of their labours can be seen at the nearby Skagen museum.

It also provides the opportunity to climb the Raabjerg Mile free of the company of sightseers, who can park their cars at its foot. The Raabjerg Mile, the high point of what Hansen calls the Danish desert, is a dune that has been left, for research, in its natural state. Eventually, if allowed to run its course, it will advance eastwards until it cuts one of the main roads and the railway line linking Skagen with the south.

Countless wrecked ships have been washed up on these shores, and we come across a section of wooden hull of indeterminate age. Hansen shows us spoons from a vessel that foundered here some time in the 1900s.

Our hike lasts for three days, covering 30 to 40 miles. To make a week of it, we decide to spend a night each in the lively university city of Arhus, with its pavement cafés and lovely cathedral, and Aalborg, where the tourist office provides an excellent booklet conducting the visitor on foot around its sites of historical and architectural interest.

The rest of the time we spend in Skagen, a busy port and hugely popular resort. Here we walk out to Grenen, past huge Second World War German bunkers. Most are still largely intact, though some are subsiding, their now vanished guns no longer aimed an preventing enemy access to the Baltic.

Just before ending our walk there, we climb the tower that is the only part of the extraordinary Tilsandedekirke still visible. The rest was buried after worshippers, towards the end of the 18th century, wearied of digging their way in and sought royal permission to close the church.

That night, we dine royally on superb fish soup and lemon sole at the Skagen fish restaurant, where sand is spread on the floor. Then we return to the museum, to discover how art reflects reality – that special light, bouncing between sea and sky, is unmistakable. It glows on the faces of Michael Ancher's rugged fishermen and softly bathes PS Kroyer's wife as she stands at the water's edge. We can now understand where they got their inspiration – we have seen it for ourselves.

Fact file: Northern Denmark

Danish tour firm Snail Trail (00 45 5094 3821, www.walkingholidaysdk.com) offers guided walking tours from £315, which includes accommodation, breakfasts and packed lunches. Special itineraries can be created for group bookings of ten to 20 people.

KLM flies from Edinburgh, Glasgow or Aberdeen, via Amsterdam, to Billund. Ryanair has announced plans to operate direct flights from Edinburgh to Billund from September.