The pilgrims tale (2014) day 2, Wednesday 10 September

Well, what a night! The optimism and enthusiasm shown in my entry before I went to bed last night was clearly misguided. During yesterday's walk I had noticed a niggling pain in my right hip, but chose to ignore it as nothing serious. Did that decision come back to bite me on the arse!!! Throughout the night I did not manage to get more than half an hours unbroken sleep before I was woken up by an intense pain in my hip. I was popping pain killers like smarties, all to no avail, so I laid in "bed" waiting for the dawn to break. On went the porridge and I set about packing away my room for the night. Apart from the pain in my hip, it really had been a very cosy night.

I was back on the trail for 8am, and once I strapped my rucksack harness around my pelvis, the pain from my hip seemed to abate. This mornings walking was very different to yesterday. For a start it was dry, and secondly it was much more open walking. I was following cycle paths and dirt tracks, which made the going quite quick, I managed to cover 10kms in the first 2 hours.

But the the pain came back with a vengeance! Walking was sheer agony. What made it worse was that the track suddenly went off road again, and boy was it off road. The track was barely wide enough to walk down, and some of the ups and downs were so treacherous that ropes had had to be put in place. What I did notice an abundance of was elk/ moose droppings. It was everywhere, but not an animal in sight sadly.

The only consolation was it was at least dry. The journey itself was a massive roller coaster of highs and lows, possibly due to the pain killers.   When pain free I was fine, but when the pain came it was bad enough to make me curse out loud. As I was starting to feel really low, I was buoyed by the sight of a service station right next to the path. I binned my rucksack and grabbed a much needed coffee and my favorite Norwegian cake. A kokkeboller, or coconut cake. As I walked around the garage though, I noted that even without the rucksack I could now hardly walk the pain was so bad. Once again, it seemed that by tightening my rucksack when I put it back on, the pain subsided slightly, though this could have been the extra painkillers I took with my coffee.

I eventually reached the first church of the day, Ullensaker kirke;

In the guide, "The pilgrim road to Nidaros" it suggests taking a detour from the path as it continued from the church if it was misty. I didn't because, not only was it not misty, but I was in so much pain I was afraid I might just jump on a train if I went through a large town, and bin the trip. Anyhow, I stayed on the path and would advise all others to take the detour. The path was so overgrown, and narrow, a machete would have been ideal. It also follows farm paths used by cattle, so in places is EXTREMLY muddy and shitty, boot deep. I actually thought I was going to lose a boot at one point. It also involved crossing a lot of ploughed farmland, which didn't seem right.

And so, the second church of the morning was a welcome sight;

Hovin kirke. The hip was definitely slowing me down and was leaving me feeling quite depressed. Once again, I started to seriously think of ending the journey, which is not like me at all, so you can imagine the pain I was in. I decided that, at the very least, I had to see the day out and try and get a good nights sleep, as tiredness wasn't helping. A short time after leaving Hovin The trail passed Raknehaugen, the largest ancient mound in Norway.

I continued on, but was now in a bit of a quandary where to spend the night. Hovin would have been ideal, but it was only 3 in the afternoon, so still a little early to set camp. The next obvious place on the map was a pilgrim accomodation at Risebu, but that was way too far. I finally settled on taking a detour from the marked path, it basically meant going to the right of a lake instead of the left, as there was another church on that side. There might also have been a chance of hopping on a bus to get to the lodgings at Risebu. Anyway, it was all to no avail as, when I saw a nice meadow at the side of the road, I decided I couldn't physically take another step, so here I am for the night! I still managed 32kms today, but it took 11 hours. As for the hip, I'm really taking it a day at a time. My body is screaming "go home", but my head is shocking, "knuckle under and get on with it". I am only concerned I might miss the point when determination becomes stupidity. If anyone has any words of advice, please do drop me a line