Over the North Sea, Shetland, Orkney.

Dear Friends and Allies of The Orkney Boat,

The Orkney Boat has returned to the land from which we set out. 

In Trondheim the mornings have the quality of appearing to be early long after they have ceased to be. We left the fjord-side in dawn light to meet our homeward bound vessel in Buvika. 

I had met Davie Meddes quite by chance, in a quayside pub in Orkney, on the May evening before setting sail for Bergen. Unbeknownst to me, earlier that afternoon he had seen The Orkney Boat in Stromness harbour, unattended and waiting to be stowed on The Swan. (Not so) secretly he had stood in the footprints and become interested in the story. And so followed his amazingly generous offer, to join his crew and family as they sailed south along the Norwegian coastline, and return The Orkney Boat by sea when the time came. 

For two days we fought our way south with the wind directly on our nose. The stone and trailer were lashed to the deck, the trailer becoming satisfyingly rusty in the salt air and the rain. No-one could doubt now that it had made a sea voyage. During a night in Måløy harbour and a briefing about how we would tackle the following days in the North Sea, Davie prepared me for a potential abrupt departure of the stone, should things get too difficult out there. He was expecting a tumultuous crossing; the winds were expected to come round to suit us, at high speeds. He would take over the 12-4 watch to save too much struggling in the dark, and we would all be clipped on when on deck to avoid any man overboard crises in the pitch black. Mildly appalled at the suggestion that we might have to lose the stone at sea, I supposed that if the stone decided to work itself loose and return to the North Sea it might be a rather poetic end to our journey together. It took three further days, on a permanent port tack, heeled hard to starboard in rough seas of 4 metre waves to get to Shetland. (During this time there were some valiant attempts at porridge making below deck, many bouts of sickness and all the soft fruit on board was more or less annihilated.) Having put a fourth reef in at 4am, to temper the 35 knot gusts, the main sail was about the size of a king-sized bedsheet, yet still we were rocketing along under sail at 8 knots. Happily no-one was entirely lost to sea sickness, conditions calmed down on approach to Shetland and the stone remained firmly in contact with the deck. 

Here we are in Orkney again, 82 days since we departed these shores. The Orkney Boat has not quite made it to the right portion of coastline yet, since we still have the last few miles between Orphir and Kirkwall to walk together. Do join us at 10.00 on September 7th for the opening talk of the Orkney International Science Festival by travel writer Christopher Somerville and the final steps with The Orkney Boat.

Thank you Davie, Gill, Mathieu, Tess and Aaron for returning us home.
Antony and Ross thank you, as ever, for just being on hand for everything. 

The Orkney Boat goes home

Dear Friends and Allies of The Orkney Boat,

Our time in Norway is drawing to a close. The Tess Bess is sailing south to Trondheim. Any day now she will arrive to take me and The Orkney Boat on board as far as Shetland.  After this I intend that we will board the passenger ferry to Kirkwall, arriving around 21st August. So, the stone will not be stationary for some time yet, not even when it arrives home, as the last 12 miles of the Magnus Way await us in September.

Trondheim has been incredibly good to me. The Orkney Boat has been housed in the stonemasonry workshop of Nidaros Cathedral, amongst Norwegian soapstones- both tamed into carvings and wild in their raw, block form. And I have had the privilege of working alongside the restoration team, for the first time shaping a stone using an axe, with my beloved stone anchor waiting beside me. As well as a banker mark- traditionally a mason's signature, this stone, intended for the King's Entrance, is marked with two tiny footprints pointing west, towards the North Sea and home.

And so begins the return of The Orkney Boat.

The Orkney Boat arrives in Trondheim

Dear Friends and Allies of The Orkney Boat,


According to plan, at midday on 26th July we walked the last 11 kilometres into Trondheim with The Orkney Boat. 

The story is not quite at an end, and the journey is not quite over, but here ends our walk through Norway with the stone. It is a bitter-sweet feeling. In our last week of walking we were (not entirely comfortably) averaging 22 kilometres on back-to-back days. Yet the last 11 kilometres were some of the most halting and unsettled. 

However, we received a welcome to Trondheim far beyond anything we had anticipated! The end of the walk has become something of a collaboration between The Orkney Boat team and the Nidaros Cathedral restoration workshops! It is a privilege to have had their support and company as the walk comes to a close, and the rousing and enthusiastic welcome that we walked in to was enough to boot-out any tiredness or trepidation we might have felt. At the workshops we were fed and fortified, before pilgrims, stonemasons, glaziers, carpenters, director, news crew and all, took the final steps together to the last way marker. 

It has been an extraordinary journey. 

TUSEN TAKK, Steiner, Espen and colleagues for your huge warmth and generosity. I can imagine no better ending to 643 kilometres and 50 days on the Gudbrandsalen path. We are delighted to have arrived in Trondheim, amidst its rollicking celebrations of St Olav and Norway's rich food and drink traditions! Nidaros is regarded as the pinnacle of good masonry practice, so for two British stonemasons and an Orcadian stone to be allowed a glimpse of these workings is a highlight in the story of The Orkney Boat. 

Tomorrow The Orkney Boat will be at the Archbishop's Palace, by invitation of the Olavsfestagene and the Cathedral workshops. Please do come by- to stand in the stone, or simply hear a tale or two about its journey. 

As ever, thank you also to those of you reading this, who were rooting for us and following our progress so loyally. Our pilgrim passports, dated and signed off at the Nidaros Pilegrimssenter, are testament to the days and distances we have walked with The Orkney Boat. The journey of the stone is almost complete, and soon the weight of the project will shift to focus on its return to Orkney. Plenty of potential for further adventure during our 4 day North sea crossing. I will be in touch again soon, with news of our safe landing in Orkney.

A little bit of Norwegian news coverage... ( Pilegrim-02.10)

https://tv.nrk.no/serie/distriktsnyheter-midtnytt/DKTL98072617/26-07-2017#t=2m11s

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.

Dovrefjell- Fokstagu- Oppdal

Dear Friends and Allies of The Orkney Boat,

After 6 days in the mountains we have successfully crossed Dovrefjell with the stone and we are preparing for the next stretch in Oppdal. I won’t write much about the physical challenge of the journey, except to say that the photos belie the faithful, entire experience. It took both of us to make almost every single step. What you see here are the moments of grace and contentment - there were some agonising days that, for good or bad, have gone undocumented, because for those moments you need a somewhat removed documentary photographer. Thankfully we are without injury, only exhausted, and talking already of how the memories of the horror fade, to be eclipsed by the good, which are magnified. However, we are grateful for what looks to be an easier two week stretch into Trondheim. Marianne - our great wagon! - survived her mountain ordeal and is running smoothly. Shame that I didn’t have the horsepower to match her!

We came from Dovre, over the aptly named Hardbakken, to follow the Kongvegen (King’s Path) to Fokstagu. The size of rocks and gradient of the ascent required us to carry The Orkney Boat over significant distances. Our descent to Fokstugu was no easier, the path being cut deep into the bank only a foot wide. However, on arriving at Fokstugu Farm, intending only to make some tea and move on, we were met unexpectedly by Juergen who was painting the bridge in exchange for his lodgings. This was delight enough, but there followed a request from the owners that we stay a night too, to recover and rest. These were a good couple of days - we benefited hugely from the peace of the place and the affirmation and interest that was abounding regards our journey with The Orkney Boat.

When we returned to the path we were able to follow a better road, fit for bicycles, through Dovrefjell National Park, to Hjerkinn. It rained heavily a full day, during which we sought advice about the upcoming terrain (all of which was well meant, most of which got us into difficulty. No matter!) We walked a spectacular ascent to Hjerkinnshøe before our success rapidly unravelled outside Kongsvold. The Orkney Boat has, however, greeted a Norwegian cairn at 1,300 metres, encountered two moose and an adder and had an examination from a curious red squirrel. We did not glimpse any of the famous Moskusokse of Dovrefjell, except in this glass case at Oppdal train station; probably a good thing since we cannot cut a very hasty retreat!

If it were not for the goodness of well-wishers at the river, Minke, Juergen, Laurits and Christiana, Dieter and Arvind, a team of NSB staff who allowed me to flag down the train at 4am, and a stranger and his small son visiting from Oslo, this chapter might have ended differently.

Marianne- our great wagon- lives!

In a swift adage to our previous write-up... Today we found the very people to repair Marianne, at Fron Traktorservice! With her newly fixed, bigger wheels this is our best chance of crossing Dovrefjell and in what looks to be clear weather. So, we are going to attempt the mountains. The plateau of Dovrefjell is the highest point on our journey, at 1321 metres, and to walk up there with the stone would be our greatest achievement of this adventure so far. All being well with the new wheels and welding, we hope to descend (at a controlled pace) into Oppdal within a week.

Anon! Beatrice and Toby.

Lillehammar- Hundorp. An essential stone.

“You must be an idealist to do this, no?” (Dieter, then an acquaintance, now a friend, met first at Hamar and again at Dale Gudbrand Gard)

Dear Friends and Allies of The Orkney Boat,

I am writing from Hundorp, 305km from Oslo, which marks almost the halfway point of our walk through Norway. We have 337km ahead of us. Writings on the blog so far have mostly taken the form of diary entries but, on this occasion, I would like to be a little more reflective about the stone and the effect that walking with it for such a time is having on me. A few things have come into rather stark perspective...

The first, which is not actually a revelation at all, is that carrying the stone brings me great reassurance, emotional comfort and security. Carrying the stone also leads directly to my physical discomfort and fear.

I have come to think of the stone as essential. The space beneath the trailer is ideal for the tent and the water, and the food and map-case usually ride ahead of the stone, on top. In this way, alongside the shelter, the water and the food, sometimes the stone seems no less necessary. I never resent it. I resent the weight of the food and I rage at the difficulty of the trailer, but the stone is constant, not just in its size and weight and patience but in its presence. It is un-negotiable. I wanted to try to make a journey on foot with it, partly I think to prove the sad (near) impossibility of doing such a thing, but despite this I have always wanted to succeed. With all my heart I want this to be the journey AND RETURN of the stone, but I do also want it to test my commitment and my strength because so many that long to can not make their journey with their landscape in tow. I cannot help but feel that for the journey to be this difficult is authentic and exactly as it should be.

The path in the wood above Hundorp is narrow, rocky and steep, with a drop on one side that slopes down to the railway. I was detached from the trailer, but both stone and trailer tumbled down the bank again and again. After a fall that took Toby down with it, shocked, hurt and furious, we stormed away from the scene. When I returned the stone was still laying beneath the upturned trailer, halfway down the bank. I wanted us to go down alone to find help, but I couldn’t bear to leave it there so undignified. I felt I had to right it and get it back onto the path. I was trying and failing until Toby returned and we could drag our cargo back onto the path. We emerged from the wood, no more hurt, an hour later with a grass stained, muddy stone and a trailer that has no bearings remaining. So now there is only the option to drag the trailer and stone, since it will no longer roll. Still, this hardship will have its rewards... According to the Orkneyinga Saga, dragging a boat over the land is an ancient way if claiming it for yourself!

“He [Beiti] had one of his ships hauled over from Beistad north across Namdalseid to Namsen on the far side, with Gor sitting aft, his hand on the tiller. So he laid claim to all the land lying to port, and sizeable area with many settlements.”

It seems that everyone who we meet and re-meet walking this path faces some adversity on their journey. It is a long, hard route and people are dogged by their thoughts, their fatigue, their injuries. And we all agree that there is huge value in overcoming these supposed limitations. Such is any worthwhile journey. This season’s Gudbrandsalen walkers are often reunited on the road, but then our schedules or our difficulties part us for a while. But bread, honey, beer, pilgrim waffles and delight are shared when we are together! I have marvelled at the simplicity of this formula - this path, with its Pilegrimssenter network providing advice, rest and support is ENABLING and that is why I am moved by it. It makes it possible for people to walk almost half of Norway, to meet each other, eat together and share their stories! If the UK were bigger, wilder, with long distance paths I would want to replicate this model. As it is, I am left simply with the sense that to enable, in any way, is a something to strive to do.

Before going North, The Orkney Boat visited the Tokstad Pine - a 500 year old protected pine tree outside Ringsaker. Ursula stood barefoot in the stone, with the tree ascending behind her and told me she was perfectly balanced there between earth and sky. Then, once again, The Orkney Boat boarded another boat and we went to the North stretch of Mjøsa with some fellow walkers on the paddle steamer, Skibladner. On the morning of our departure from Lillehammer, while making porridge and patching a stubborn puncture, we met a member of the university staff coming along the path. Her immediate understanding and summation is worth telling - “Yes” she said, “Sometimes I say to my students, stand up! Stand up and just feel yourself in contact with the ground!”

We do, as ever, need to find someone spirited and kind, owning their own grinder and welding equipment. I am reminded of Robyn Davidson urging us to choose adventure - adventure of the mind! - even in the most ordinary of circumstances. Somebody between Hundorp and Dovre must surely have the inclination for adventure enough to fix up a trailer fit to cross Dovrefjell...