The pilgrims tale (2014) day 5, Saturday 13th September

Well, I awoke this morning with some difficulty and stiff as a board (not in the teenage boy sense either)! No ammount of stretching helped, and I have been pretty careful at the start and of each day. The hip was still throbbing and I felt like just packing it in there and then. At the end of the day, I am not out to break a world record or set some new precedent, I am merely undertaking an onerous task to try and highlight a very worthy cause in the fight against cancer. Doing myself permanent injury is not going to help that cause. I mentioned before that there has to be a defining point between determination and stupidity. I have probably already passed that, but have also been driven by not wanting to let people down. The last few days, practically every step has been painful. In order to compensate for my hip, my gait has obviously adapted in some way to cause problems elsewhere. I had known from the start that this walk was going to be tough, purely through lack of preparation if nothing else, but I thought strength of will might have carried me through. Instead, it was like entering the world of long distance walks and going from 0-100 in an instant. As I sat this morning looking out over lake Mjøsa, trying to work out what to do, my phone pinged with a message. It was from an old Inspector of mine, a real gent of a guy and someone who I always had, and still have, a great deal of respect for. He had gone to a great deal of effort to write a lengthy letter to me, weighing up the pros, cons and achievabilty of my journey, but the bit that clinched it was;

"You have already achieved a great deal ...

Don't hesitate to do what YOU think is right.

Please don't misunderstand my letter, I feel gutted for you but just want to put a voice where there is none.....

If I was with you I would be saying the same ..

You are already a hero in my book .... Don't damage yourself..."

The writing had been on the wall really, and discretion just had to be the better part of valor. I wanted to set myself at least one goal though which, as it transpired, turned in to two. First was reaching Hamar, the site of the ruins of an old cathedral which would have been one of the high points for the pilgrims of old. The next was to hit 100 miles walked. By completing the first I hoped to achieve the latter. I donned my boots for what was to be the last time, and wondered what a state I would have been in had I not been wearing properly fitted boots in addition to all my other problems. I really cannot say thank you enough to the guys at Cotswold for that small mercy. I left the cabin and trudged wearily away from the Tangenodden camp site at Tangen and headed once again North. At least today I was surrounded by open space rather than the overbearing trees of the previous days.

The theme for the day today was to be farming. For the last four days I had passed through field after field of farmland, seen lots of tractors and machinery, yet not a soul in sight. Today, a Saturday, it seemed like very man and his dog was out working in the fields, as well as his wife, parents, kids, and immigrant workers. Everywhere there were tractors shuffling backwards and forwards, large machines harvesting potatoe crops and people running around in a flourish of activity. The fact that it was a cloudless sky with a hot sun beating down couldn't have made it very pleasant work though. And there were some quite impressive looking farms too.

After a slight detour inland from the lake, the path inevitably led back towards the vast expanse of water which was still shrouded in a blanket of mist.

The route markers remained a bit of an enigma as well. You could go for a number of kms without seeing one, then all of a sudden there would be a little flourish of markers hanging from trees, yellow spray painted direction arrows and these more official posts;

And of course, always the churches.

Although seeing signs of life everywhere, it was still a very lonely walk. I'm sure if Mr Chaucer had walked this pilgrimage he would have struggled to fill a book as he did. Maybe the trail is different in the Summer months, however, looking at the visitors books left along the trail for people to fill in, I don't think so. The aim of the organisation responsible for marking and maintaining the St Olav Way's was, I think, to eventually earn the paths the same cudos as the Santiago de Compostela, but a lot of work has to be done before that will ever happen. Even though I have set myself a probably unsustainable pace, without that, it is still not a relaxed walk if done in its entirety. I know I have only completed a quarter of it, but that quarter itself is a poorly marked path over testing ground. Added to that, sticking to this route, you miss a lot of the real beauty of Norway that is the Norwegian Coast.

As I notched up the kms, my pace was starting to slow, or so I thought, and I looked longingly at the several bus stops I passed. That said, I hadn't seen a single bus go past, so it could have been a very long wait. I had solved the question of accomodation for the night early in the day by ringing the pilgrim centre at Hamar. Although technically out of season, they made sure a bed was made up for me and provided me with a code to open the front door. Payment was on a loyalty system. When I got my first view of Hamar through the trees, it couldn't have come soon enough.

The path followed the waterfront through Hamar, leading to the old cathedral. This had always been on my "to see" list as it looked quite an incredible building. That is to say, not the ruins, but the glass and steel structure built to protect and cover the remains.

A view above of lake Mjøsa basking in the evening sun and some of the marinas I passed on the water front.

And eventually I came to the cathedral.

Avd so the journey comes to an end. I hope I haven't let down or disappointed those following my endeavours and those supporting me. Suffice to say this has probably been one of the hardest tasks I have ever undertaken in my life. If I said it had been fun, I would be lying. It hasn't. But I do know I have reserves of will power I didn't know I had. I also know that I am able to make the tough decision to stop when going forward would be foolish. There are too many tales out there of adventures losing fingers/limbs because they didn't know when to stop. I'm not calling myself a great adventurer by any stretch, just pointing out there there is a time when the body can not take any more, and you ignore it at your peril. I would like to come back to finish the walk one day, a little wiser and a little better prepared, and I'm sure I will. For those who haven't donated yet, although I didn't complete the task, I think I have done more to earn a donation than having a bucket of tepid water poured over my head. Please give generously at https://www.justgiving.com/Walking-The-Walk2/ , or if in the UK, text OLAV 99 followed by an ammount, i.e £5, to 70070

I have walked exactly 100 miles, or 161kms, and felt every one of them. I have aches in places I did not know could ache and I am hopeful the feeling will one day return to my right big toe. Tomorrow, it's a train to Oslo, bus to Rygge and then a plane back home, from where I can already hear my bath calling me.