Well, well........ 11hours sleep. I definitely must have needed it. I awoke at 8am and dozed until 9 before getting up and breaking camp. I felt like a new person. Admittedly, the hip was still bad, but I had clearly been exhausted during yesterday's trek. So, once everything was packed, off I set again. It was rather misty and damp this morning, but amazingly it did not dampen my enthusiasm, which was strange but good! I had decided to "knock it on the head" today after eight hours, no matter how far I had got. As 10 was a late start I decided to make up some mileage while I felt good. I quickly reached the church I had been aiming for the night before, only to be mocked by a warning sign for moose on the road! Will I ever see one?
I took the opportunity to fill all my water carriers from the church hose before moving on. Still going well, I reached the ancient stone bridge at Risebru, now replaced by a more modern, motor vehicle friendly bridge.
A sign beside the bridge informed me that I was 5 mile from Christiania. Now, this could be confusing. A Norwegian mile, pronounced meeIa, is a distance of 10 kms. Christiania is the old name for Oslo. So what the old sign was actually saying was that it was 50kms to Oslo.
I then travelled through Norway's equivalent of suburbia, with estates of pretty wooden houses placed apparently at random and all with immaculately well kept gardens. I have always loved the way that Norwegians take such great care and pride in the exterior of their houses. It is probably because much of the year they are covered in a blanket of snow so they want to make the most of it in the Summer. For that reason too, Summer is a much worshipped time of year.
A bit further on and I came across the welcome sight of a petrol station. I there filled up on a brunch of pølser, a Norwegian hotdog, and coffee which went down really well and definitely re-fuelled the engine.
At Eidsvoll Verk, I stopped to admire the bridge over the river in the middle of town and got a couple of Norwegian ladies to take a photo of me. They asked about my journey and were surprised I had travelled on foot from Oslo. Even more so to find I was continuing to Trondheim. So much so, that when they asked where I was from and I replied, "The UK", they enquired as to whether I had swum from there!
By now the sun was high in the sky and it was a pleasure to walk. The painkillers were doing their job and I was still making good speed. The path had dropped down beside a river and it really was an idyllic way to spend an afternoon. I was even able to forget about my hip for a bit.
The going had all been pretty good, although there was still a little of the single track footpaths. That is a bit of a mis-nomer though because I really think they should be called "single foot" paths because they honestly were more suited for a one legged man to travel along. When a footbridge appearing nearly brand new appeared out of the foliage, it really was quite astounding. This one looked as if it had only been put in place yesterday, yet to reach it required hacking your way through all sorts of plant life!
I had in mind a pilgrim shelter that I wished to stay in tonight, so had made that my goal. When I eventually crossed the bridge to pass through Eidsvoll, I still had some distance to go, so took the opportunity to fuel up a little more at a garage selling waffles and coffee.
Whilst walking along a particularly straight piece of road leading out of Eidsvoll, I saw in the far distance somebody sat at the side of the road. As I got closer I saw it was an old man sat on a large boulder. He was obviously a local man and waved cheerfully at the motorists he recognised going past. As I past him, he asked a question of me that I didn't understand, so I explained I was from the UK. He then went on in broken English to ask me the nature of my journey, where had I come from, where was I going to? I showed him on the map where I was heading that day, but due to an eye condition he couldn't see the map. He then went on to explain that he was seeing his Dr in the morning to arrange an operation. It was a rather strange conversation. Anyway, we eventually parted with a wave and a smile, he wishing me "God tur" and me wishing him the best of luck with his Dr in the morning.
As I then headed into a heavily wooded area, the going began to get tough again. It was all uphill, my hip was throbbing and I was starting to feel a little demoralised. Truth be known, I was feeling really quite lonely. I knew the cabin I was heading for was near to a lake, so I decided that if I got my head down and made better speed, I could maybe take a bath in the lake, either on the way to the cabin, or drop my stuff of at the cabin and rush back for a quick dip. What urged me on more than anything through the woods though were the ammount of shotguns I could hear being discharged. Grouse hunting season started on Tuesday, and they were clearly bang at it in this area, (pun intended).
Anyway, the sight I beheld when I rounded a corner before the lake made me forget completely about staying in any cabin.
Enough said! The only downside was no phone connection, so no updates or messages from home. Anyway, I took my bath, and it was COLD, but got rid of some of the grime and eased the pains I was feeling in my body. Another 34 kms in the bag today. A quick kit check showed everything working as it should be and in good repair. The boots got a quick wash in the lake as they had had everything thrown at them, cow shit, moose shit, mud, bogs, you name it. But inside my feet were still totally dry and comfy. Just wish the hip would settle down.
