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.

The pilgrims tale (2014) Day 4, Friday 12th September

I woke up this morning to rain beating a steady patter on the outside of the tent, one of the worst sounds to hear from the inside of a tent if you know that that day you are going to have to pack away the soaking wet nylon. I moped about for a bit, by which time the rain stopped, and so dried the outside as best I could before packing. It was clear from the map that I wouldn't see much in the way of habitation today, so I made a quick get away.

I didn't realise just how bad this day was going to get though. The trail immediately lead me into thickly forested areas that were so dense as to make you feel claustrophobic. This was not the "prepared" footpath I had been lead to believe St Olav's Way was and you had to really have your wits about you to save stumbling on hidden roots or slipping on wet stones. It is also not a route to take ageing relatives along for a Sunday walk. It actually became very oppressive to walk along the path. I had by now taken to listening to my iPod to break the monotony, which was a welcome relief. I started to question the whole idea of undertaking this venture in the first place. It had been intended to be walked in the summer, but circumstances meant I had the opportunity to do it now. When I say "now", the idea was to start it a couple of weeks ago, but personal circumstances made that impossible. Then, all of a sudden, I was committed to doing it. I must again say thank you to the guys at Cotswold for helping out with kit and advice, that has all gone splendidly. What does feel lacking now is my ability! I have NEVER even attempted to do anything like this. The limit of one of my walks is a day walk in Snowdonia! What's worse is that I am doing it alone, so no-one to share the burden of weight with, and have set myself a pace which I don't think is sustainable. Someone said to me, "You're not in a race", but I am really. A race to cross Dovrefjell before bad weather sets in, and a race to get back home to those I love. The prospect of being away from my children for so long is quite daunting. Last, but not least, is the state of my body. My hip is really starting to worry me, and every day I am not so much counting kilometres as minutes to the next medication. My feet are constantly sore and swollen and I am starting to develop blisters. Without going into too much detail, I am also chaffing in some very painful places. I am becoming resigned to not reaching Trondheim, but will take every day a day at a time and see where it takes me.

As for the woods, well, they just carried on and on and on! It didn't help when I inevitably lost my footing and went flying. What did I land on? The only boulder in the immediate vicinity. Which part of my body took the full force? Yep, you guessed it, my right hip. I did take some photos though. These are of a cabin, "hytte", that was made available to pilgrims for free;

Not bad for free! And this is a photo of the forest trail when it widened out!!

It wasn't until late afternoon that I eventually came down out of the woods to catch my first sight of the marvellous Lake Mjøsa.

Again, I had already decided where I would stay for the night, a pilgrim shelter at Epsa, but could not for the life of me find it. Plan B was another business offering accomodation for pilgrims, at a price, but by now, I didn't care. I just wanted to stop and get my boots and rucksack off. I rang the number I had for the place, only to be told they weren't open for business! Aaaargh!! So I had to walk another 6kms to get to a campsite at Tangen, Tangenodden camping. The thought of putting up the tent and being confined to that small space for the evening again just didn't appeal, so I decided instead to rent one of the small hytte. Good choice. I soaked my feet in the cold waters of Mjøsa and allowed them to cool down.

I had a 12 minute long shower, washed my clothes and did what I could for my ailments. A tic check proved negative, thankfully. My left little toe has now disappeared within a blister, which literally exploded when I grabbed the toe to examine it.

But all is not completely bad. I bought some pasta and sauce to make a big, and much needed, meal with a beer to wash it down. I am sprawled out in a cabin to sleep four and I am looking forward to a sound nights sleep. I ate my dinner on the porch of the cabin, looking out over Mjøsa.

It's really not difficult to work out why Norwegians don't go on caravan holidays to the UK.

I'm going to call it a night for now and see what the morning brings.

The pilgrims tale (2014) day 3, Thursday 11th September

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.

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