Autumn is a dream

Sometimes an ordinary local flight brings pleasant surprises of an unimaginable scale. When I came to my home flying club Albatros in Måløv, I wasn’t even sure I’d be airborne. It was raining from time to time, the ceiling was low, although  northavimet – the weather site for pilots – didn’t indicate any clouds at all, and the visibility was good.

My co-pilot that day was Flemming, and he helped with the practical and heavy stuff, among other things with fetching fuel:

We took off, and what a beautiful view we got flying over the Roskilde fjord! It was a calm and windless Sunday afternoon, but in approx. 2000 feet there was wind, and the clouds were shifting quickly. The waters on the contrary were perfectly still, not a single movement over the surface! As we flew over the water, we could see the sharp reflection of the clouds, and it looked like the sky immersed itself into the upside down world:

Soon there were some clouds, and we flew on their edge trying to catch the ray of sunlight occasionally beaming through:

I wanted to find one or another forest in autumn colours – to appreciate it from air. Though it was such a grey day,
I didn’t give up my hope. Flemming suggested to fly southwest, because there were some forests there, but unfortunately it was raining in that direction:

In the north, the weather looked much better, and we changed our course:

A closer look at Nexelø, a small island with 20 inhabitants in the Bay of Sejerø:

Sanddobberne beach with its quaint landscape, small dunes and lagoons with blue-green waters:

We flew around, and admired all those deep colours and magnificent views we saw on our way. The sun was coming out erratically, and quickly hided behind the clouds again. I just hoped we’d be at the right place and at the right time – to catch that glimpse of a splash of the late autumn forest colours.

And we were lucky – the nature gave us one unexpected present after one. Between Sønderby and Eskildsø there is a small forest. When we came closer, the sun sent its slow golden light right on it, highlighting all those different nuances and textures:

We did a round, and enjoyed the gift before it was gone.

Later, we saw the Roskilde Fjord to transform itself into a surreal out-of-this-world place:

Flemming noted that if we were on another planet, we would never guessed it was water.  The surface looked like breathless and dark polished metal… Feeble predawn light reflected itself in the clouds, and the sun – in the water. Bizarre and very special…

Down there, on Earth, the sun looked very different and … ordinary?

It was a beautiful afternoon, with so many stunning experiences. Since this flight, I looked at those surreal Roskilde Fjord photos every day, and asked myself “did I really see it?”