Day 8: Hamar to Brumenddal

I think I am a little bit in love with Norway! Leaving Hamar as children made their way to school, the younger ones accompanied by a parent, the older ones on their own.  Many of them on bikes.  The cyclists here are the most courteous I have met, always giving way to pedestrians on shared pavements and always getting off their bikes to walk across pedestrians crossings.  Cars always seem to give pedestrians plenty of space. People just seem very polite.  

Today started a little later than normal as I had to wait for my hotel breakfast!  And this time, as well as making myself a packed lunch I remembered to fill my flask with coffee. I walked out of Hamar along the edge of Mjøsa Lake and up through a nature reserve.  It rained a little, so I got my rain jacket out and put it on, which of course scared the rain away.  The rest of the day was sunshine and blue skies! Not too warm, perfect walking weather.  

I’d promised myself a coffee stop at Furnes Church.  When I got there I met another pilgrim who was just about to leave.  We chatted for a while.  He is from Trondheim and is walking the route in stages, spending about a week each year on the path.  We discovered that we had the same destination this evening.  I sat for a while after he had left, enjoying my coffee and totally forgetting about the snacks I had planned to eat!  

Today the route took me through forests, farmland, quiet residential streets and Brumddal town centre.  I quite enjoy a bit of residential walking.  I find the varied architecture styles fascinating, love a glimpse through an uncurtained window and watching all the robot lawnmowers…well, they are a revelation!  Almost every garden seems to have one toiling away while their owners are nowhere to be seen.  

My home for the night is Koss Gard (Gard means farm).  I’m in the main house, the hostess showed the two of us around, showed us where the food she had made for our dinner was and then left for work, telling us she would be back to make breakfast for us at 7am tomorrow.  She just left us, total strangers, in the home that has been in her family for generations, on our own.  

I think this is one of the things that makes this journey so special.  The places we stay are not just a place to sleep. They are unique, and we are trusted guests.  When I started planning this trip I had no idea  how different the pilgrim accommodation here would be compared to the Spanish albergues.  And I thought that it all sounded very over priced.  I was wrong!  I think tonight will cost me the equivalent of about £55 for dinner, bed (linen and towels included) and breakfast in the most stunning setting. 

Day 7: Ingeborg Refling Hagens House to Hamar

This is the delayed daily pod! I’ve been trying to sort out all sorts of admin.  On an iPhone. With fat fingers.  I’ve successfully completed my application for the Scottish equivalent of a DBS check, and am trying to re jig the rest of my accommodation for this trip so that it feels more like a holiday than a punishment tab!  I called in at the Pilgrim Centre and asked whether I’d be able to find accommodation if I cancel all the bookings I have and then book again a few days in advance.  The woman in there was lovely, and said I ‘should be’ OK… I was really after a ‘You will be absolutely fine’ or an ‘Are you insane?’ response.  I’m not assisted with planning by what I have come to find is the habitual slow response to emails and phone enquiries.  I’ve phoned and emailed a place I’d like to stay at the day after tomorrow.  She said on the phone she would respond to my email…but nothing has arrived.  I don’t want to start cancelling other places until I hear back.  It is all a bit stressful!

Anyway… back to today. 28km from Tangen to Hamar.   Not overly hilly, on good woodland paths and quite a lot of road.  An easy-ish day.  I had a breakfast snack at the Hill of Joy.  This was a point from which early pilgrims could spot more than one church - which apparently made them fall to their knees in joyous celebration.  I was pleased to see a bench! 

I do miss breakfast (and second breakfast) coffee stops! A carton of juice is just not the same.  

The countryside was lovely, lush, green, rolling hills with frequent views down to the lake.  At Stange Church I ‘caught up with’ one of the girls who had been at the same place as me last night.  I was hugely confused! She had still been asleep when I’d left, and I had no memory of being overtaken.  The explanation was quite simple…she’d taken a bus from Tangen to Stange!

At around 21km, when my need for caffeine was getting quietly insistent, I found myself on a golf course.  I walked past at least three signs that said, in English, ‘all are  welcome to use the cafe at the club house, we serve food and drinks!’ Wonderful I thought as I skipped along, thoughts of a steaming hot, black coffee propelling me on.  I soon spied a deck area with tables and chairs and, yes, a cafe.  

I had a moment of worry about the umbrellas being down, but is was only just after 10am.  I walked in, confident in the imminent arrival of a cup of coffee in my hands, to see a couple of people milling about.  They informed me that the cafe was not open, it was only open Wednesday to Saturday each week!  I was not a happy bear.  

I trudged on.  The last seven caffeine deprived kilometres dragged a bit.  I tried to get excited by the lake, and the Olympic Hall - that really looks a bit like the end or the Star Trek film where they crashed the Enterprise, but I just wanted to stop and get a coffee… and maybe an little something to eat.

I’ve got a hotel room tonight, breakfast is included but isn’t served until 6.30am, so I’ll have to have a lie in!  Once I’d checked in and had a shower, I set off to the Pilgrim Centre, stopping on the way for, at long last, a coffee!  And a waffle.  She asked if I wanted jam or ‘brown cheese’ with the waffle.  I shall have to google brown cheese… as it was I went for neither.

After the Pilgrim Centre I went to look at the ruins of the cathedral.  They are enclosed in a spectacular glass structure:

Then after a quick walk around Hamar to see what I fancy for supper and a quick look in a gorgeous yarn shop, it was back to the hotel for admin… I’m still waiting for an email reply! 

Day 6: Spitalen Old Schoolhouse to Ingeborg Refling Hagens House

An early start today! I woke stupidly early and needed a pee.  By the time I’d walked to the bottom of the garden (that’s where the loo was) and back I knew that there was no way I was getting back to sleep, so quietly packed my stuff and left.  I didn’t dare to make a coffee, as steam from the kettle had set off the fire alarm twice yesterday.  It had been a relaxing evening, chatting with the same group who had been at Haug Pilgrim’s Hostel.  The owner of the School Hous popped in during the evening to check we were all OK and it was interesting to hear a little of his story and the history of the building.

The good thing about near constant daylight is that leaving early doesn’t necessitate a head torch!  I was also aware that the better weather was forecast for the morning, and the idea of avoiding another wet walk held some appeal.  

The first half of today’s route was through primeval forest.  Yesterday’s rain had added to the many streams and turned many of the paths into babbling brooks.  Birdsong and the sound of water flowing were my constant companions. Yet again I was having to be careful where I placed my feet.  Progress was slower than I would have liked and expected, and it is surprisingly exhausting!  When I have finished this post I and going to have a look at the rest of my itinerary.  I have a few 33km days coming up, and I think that is probably too much on such tricky ground.  I also don’t want to look back and regret not spending a bit more time in some of the places I am passing through.

Emerging from the woods the first thing I saw was Mjøsa lake.  The largest lake in Norway. The path follows the eastern edge taking me all the way to Lillehamer where it meets with the western path.  From here the route was on small roads, lots of great biews.  Norway very much shuts up shop on Sunday.  When the guide book warned that there were no shops until Tangen (where I am now) it failed to mention that if you arrive on Sunday that one shop will be closed! The nearest open shop is 5k away.  

The church in Tangen was open.  A very pretty one!  I popped in for a quick look.  A wonderful octagonal wooded structure.

Tonight I am staying in the house that used to belong to Ingeborg Refling Hagens, a famous Norwegian writer.  I thought I’d be in the little cabin in the garden, but my room is in the main house.  It is quite odd to be staying in a building that has huge cultural importance and lots of unique artefacts.  

Day 5: Haug Pilgrim Hostel to Spitalen Old School House

It turns out that sleeping in a structure with a glass roof during heavy rain is not easy.  I could have dug through my (packed and almost ready to go) back pack to find my earplugs, but thought I’d probably be properly awake if I did that and it wouldn’t be worth trying to get back to sleep.  So I got up at about 5am, put on my waterproof and set off.  I figured that the  earlier I arrived the longer all my stuff would have to dry.  Plus I’d get first dibs on the bed spaces! 

The rain was pretty relentless for the first two thirds of today’s walk.  I had my hat on and my hood up.  I decided that, as I could hear bugger all over the rustle of my hood, I may as well catch up on a couple of podcasts.  I got my weekly parkrun fix by listening to With Me Now and my weekly laugh out loud dose of fun facts from No Such Thing As a Fish.  I had to turn both of them off from time to time to concentrate on where my feet needed to go.  On a day when it wasn’t constantly raining I’d have been glad of my goretex shoes as I tiptoed through the streams that crossed the path. However, the rain was streaming down my legs, being absorbed by my socks and making my feet wet anyway.  

I don’t think I saw another person the whole morning.  I did see a troll. I’d have missed it if I hadn’t chosen that point to sit and scarf down some of the seeds and raisins I’d taken from the hotel breakfast.  They were delicious,  not too sweet and still crunchy. I decided to eat them all, as once I’d popped the KT tape seal they would probably be soggy by tomorrow.

A lot of today was spent on paths with varying degrees of challenge, alongside or sometimes through water.  Lots of up and down, and densely forested.  

I crossed some precarious bridges…

…I’d blanked this one from my mind until I flicked through the photos.   And some bits looked as though a group of cadets had been given a command task to get from A to B without touching C using only a plank of wood and a wish and a prayer!  As a (so called) responsible adult I’d have told the cadets to think again! 

For considerable periods today I had no ‘phone signal at all.  It meant I didn’t get the regular Saturday morning chat notifications from various groups, but it did make me think more seriously about the Garmin satellite ‘thingy’ that my friend John was talking about in Helsinki.  I need to do a bit of research…..

At one point I passed a sign that said it was approximately 6km to today’s end point. Silly me thought, ‘Wow! I’ll be done by 11am!’  Not realising that the word ‘approximately’ was doing some heavy lifting and the trail gods decided to have a laugh.  The next 2km was up a steep rocky slope, down a precipitous stone path, through a boggy and/or under water rocky bit and repeat!  That said I was in the accommodation, showered and having a coffee by 12.05pm.  

And accommodation is something that really stands out as being different to the Spanish Caminos.  For tonight, similar to last night, I was given a code to open the key safe, and payment is by bank transfer or putting cash in a box.  This is an old school house.  I’m the room that used to be the school room as I type.  There is another large room on the ground floor with two beds, some tables and  chairs and two smaller two bed rooms upstairs.  There is a composting toilet at the bottom of the garden and an outside shower (loads of really hot water and a fabulous view) and a full kitchen.  Tonight has cost me 350NOK, but no one will know if I paid it or not, it is all done on trust!  It is quite lovely and I hope that it continues this way for a long time.  I’ve seen Albergues in Spain that would easily fit 20 beds (if not more) in a room this size.  

Day 4: Gardermeon to Haug Pilgrim Hostel

If this post appears without photos please accept my apologies.  I’m sitting outside in the bright sunshine and can barely see the screen.  I suppose I could use that, and my fat fingers as an excuse a reason for all the typos.  

Apparently it is high school graduation season.  The celebrations of which involve driving around the town, playing loud music and congregating at the 24hr McDonalds that happens to be about 50m from my bedroom window.  The party kept up all night, and the hardy survivors were demolishing their McBreakfast when I left the hotel at around 7am.  I’d made myself a pack lunch or two as, after tonight, there are no shops for a couple of days.  The breakfast buffet had whole avocados available, I’m just hoping the one I picked up ripens before I have to fly home.  I also made up a snack cup, filling a take away cup with seeds and raisins, before sealing it with KT tape.  

The first 10 or so k of today’s walk was mainly on roads or well maintained tracks.  It was gently undulating, an easy, relaxing time.  My walking poles were only used as my secret defence against oncoming vehicles.  I am convinced that vehicles give me more space if the poles are in the hand nearest tth.  At one point I passed a memorial to a young man who was executed by the Nazis during the occupation, and was very aware that, in the woods nearby, hundreds of Norwegian men had been murdered by the occupiers.  

At about 19k I stopped for coffee near Eidsvoll Mansion where the constitution of Norway was signed in 1814.  Lovely little cafe attached to a visitor centre.  As I walked in the waitress asked if I was a pilgrim.  I always feel a little self conscious as, for many, this is a serious religious undertaking, whereas I’m just here to get out of chores that need doing at home.  Anyway, I said yes, and she said that meant I could have a free hot drink!  Yay!

After that there was a lovely section along the riverside, lots of information about the paper, iron and tile industries that flourished in the past were displayed.  Then the terrain changed! I could barely see the path! In the fields the crops were waist high and in the woods the nettles and brake  threatened to take me prisoner.  

 Eidsvol is a small town that seems to span three time zones!  I passed my first ‘welcome to Eidsvol’ type sign well before I stopped for coffee and the hostel I’m staying in is just on the outskirts of the town.

I was a little nervous about tonight’s accommodation.  I thought I was booked in the ‘main house’ but my reservation had been changed to ‘the greenhouse.’  The reason being is, I assume that there is only one bed in the greenhouse house and two bunks in the house and there are two Norwegian girls staying there.  In the ‘annex’ there is a couple from Australia.  I’d had a message from the lady from Oz via Facebook discussing issues with booking, and when I walked in here today she said ‘Are you Toria?’  So, on day 4, I finally meet some other pilgrims.  

Day 3: Fjellheim Gard to Gardermeon

Three days to get back to the airport! Three days!  And I’ll tell you a secret, I wondered early on today if I would make it at all.  After a great sleep (I woke up with a body battery at 100 for the first time in months), I swept the upstairs of my little cabin, took out the rubbish and set the robot vacuum cleaner to work.  What a brilliant invention! It swept, washed and dried the floor all by itself.  I closed the door, said goodbye to the horses and rejoined the trail.

It took me 30 minutes to cover the first 1.4km! I didn’t mind stopping for the moose and calf that ran across the path about 5m in front of me - they were huge!  And I added several new bird species to my Merlin ‘life list’ but the going was TOUGH.  Up and down steep rocky sections, boggy bits and paths so narrow and overgrown I wasn’t sure they actually were paths. It was great fun, but slow going.   No confidently striding out, with my hat at a jaunty angle.  Every step was carefully considered.  A thought did flit through my mind about what would happen if I fell and broke something, but I thought it best to ignore that one!

I took a short diversion off the path to see St Olav’s Gang.  This is the cleft in the rock where St Olav’s ship, that could sail through air and water (obviously- what use is a ship that only sails through one medium?) was made.  

After a ‘tricky’ couple of miles the path got more straightforward, paths through woodland, farmland and tiny villages.  I stopped for breakfast at a convenient picnic table before carrying on.  Ullensaker Church dominated the landscape.  It was visible for miles around, and when the bells began to ring at 10.30am I heard them from about 5km away.

Lunch was a sandwich and coffee in Jessheim, a pretty little town with a good selection of shops and restaurants.  I had a WhatsApp conversation with my older daughter while eating, I told her I felt like a student as I am constantly choosing the cheapest option from the menu.  That said the sandwich was delicious.

From there is was only about 8km to today’s destination.  I passed a small lake, on the opposite side of the path was an ancient burial mound.  I couldn’t help wondering whether, if it was possible to fold that bit of land in half along the path, the mound would fill the lake.  I tell you, the sun must have been getting to me.

A little later, after more fields and farms, I looked at the map and clocked that I needed to go round a lake, so keeping the lake to my left was the plan.  That was great, but on the ‘phone screen I didn’t spot the narrow bit of land between two lakes and suddenly realised I had water on both sides of me.  Still, who doesn’t love a walk by a lake (or two)?  

I’m at an airport hotel tonight.  Which is exactly how one would imagine it to be!  I’ll be sure to make myself a packed lunch when I go to breakfast in the morning as I have my longest day so far tomorrow.

Day 2: Olavsgaard to Fjellheim Gard

The Sun is shinning and my wet clothes have dried out, all is right with the world.  A hearty hotel breakfast set me up for the day.  I followed the lead of the locals and made my self a packed lunch.  This was always my intention but I thought I would have to be quite discreet.  No one else had such qualms, plonking their Tupperware sandwich boxes on the serving counter and making mountains of sandwiches to take with them.  I contented myself with a cheese roll and a banana!

The hotel was about a mile from the trail, as I set out I spotted a couple of e-scooters near an underpass and considered hiring one to get me back on track.  Then I remembered how useless I am on wheeled things that require balance and decided that the ignominy of having to come home because I’d fallen off a scooter was too much of a risk to take. 

Today’s walk was a combination of fields, forests and small towns.  The fields and forests would have been a nightmare in yesterday’s downpours and the hilly bits were still a bit challenging today.  It was a fun walk, and I was grateful for my walking poles on several occasions when the ground beneath me proved unreliable.  

The scenery is stunning. So many vivid greens, punctuated with red and white buildings and churches that have been silhouetted against the sky. 

I wrote to a friend yesterday that I hadn’t had a conversation all day, given my failure to learn any useful Norwegian that is hardly surprising. I can recognise the sign for a dentist’s office (thanks Duolingo) but I’m hoping I won’t need one.  Today I stopped for coffee and had a chat with the waiter but I am mainly on my own.  A guest book at Frogner shows how uncrowded this trail is.  Just three people yesterday! And none for a couple of days before that.

Towards the end of today’s walk my phone started making a hell of a racket.  At first I thought it was an alarm in a nearby building.  I looked and saw this screen:

I’m grateful for Google translate for helping me work out what was going on! And for a bit of shade so that I could read the screen. Today was a relatively short day, only about 18km.  Accommodation is not as easy to find as on the Spanish Caminos so that dictates the length of my ‘working day.’  Today was a short one, which means I arrived at my destination just after noon.  It is a working farm, and it appears everyone is off working.  I’ve emailed my host and a happily sitting in the sunshine, eating my lunch and enjoying the view. We are in the middle of nowhere, which is ideal as I don’t feel compelled to rush around and do anything!

Lunch view