Haeverstollen- Svorkmo- Buvika

These are our final days on the road. I am writing from the stone (sitting, rather than standing) and looking out over the sea at Buvika.

At midday on Wednesday 26^th July we will walk into Trondhjem with The Orkney Boat. At the Cathedral workshop, the Nidaros stonemasons will meet us and accompany us on our final Norwegian steps to the last waymarker. We have already said goodbye to our fellow walkers, who have gone on ahead. A contented band of five walked together with the stone for the last time, from Løkken Verk to Svorkmo, 60km from Trondhjem - me, Toby, Jürgen, Katrin and Martin.

Martin asked me if the rewards of the project had been as I thought they would be, which prompted a realisation. When I began I thought my reward would be to walk with The Orkney Boat, and I thought that the reward of others would be to encounter the stone and to have the opportunity to stand in it. In fact, my greatest reward was to walk with people, with The Orkney Boat, and it seems that to move alongside the stone was the experience of greatest significance for others too. It is the journey that has given the stone and its participants their power.

The stone and I have become more closely linked than I expected; as the stone is rewarded with people, so too am I. As it makes its encounters and accumulates its narrative, I take on those stories also. When I am in motion, it rolls behind me, requiring me to be awake to every tree root, rock and slope that my feet pass over. When I am motionless, so is the stone. It does not move without me and I do not move without it (though we have joked many times that only a retreating glacier could get the stone to Trondhjem.) To walk with it is for me, as for others who walked along beside, vital to its vitality and ours. We have walked into one another.

Since leaving the mountains behind we have largely walked undulating tarmac, gravel and dirt roads (easy on the trailer, but not so on the bones) which have given us expansive views of fields and farmland when the mist lifts. Haeverstolen Pilgrim lodgings are situated atop one such misty hill - a collection of traditional buildings full of comfortable bunks, furs and rugs, warmed by wood fire. It was a little bit of an idyll, full of good spirit and just the luxurious setting we needed after our mountain escapade. Despite its traditional appearance, the main building is an ecologically and environmentally-sound modern construction, but the set-up is based on centuries old Saelehuset principles, making it the ideal, authentic pilgrim accommodation. We were fortunate to meet some familiar folk again, as well as some new. This has been a real feature of the last few days - as we all approach our destination, we seem to converge spontaneously at the same places. Yeshe was cycling her way to Trondhjem, but the hills were unkind the following day, so we walked and pulled and pushed our way together to a successful ascent in the rain.

Over the next few weeks, from my base in Trondhjem, I hope to write a series of responses about the original ideas and intentions of the project, as I reflect on what I set out to do and how much altered, developed or surprised me entirely. The Orkney Boat and I will board another sailing vessel, Tess Bess, and return to Orkney, via Shetland, around 18^th August.