Summary: Granmo Camping to another camping 3.5 km east of Oppdal. 16 km (with detour into Oppdal town site) & 588 m elevation gain.
10:15 start walking.
I would have struggled to find the trail again if I hadn’t gone back to redo the part I missed yesterday. There are no trail markers from the campground to the trail, but the staff surely could tell you in which direction to head. Once you find the gate hiding up a steep, weedy roadside embankment, there is a trail that brings you back to the pilgrim trail.
We began through forest, farm land and dirt roads. We occasionally walk through farm house areas too, and people don’t seem to mind. Some even come for a chat.
After a long climb uphill, and passing Vang, the largest Viking Age burial site in Northern Europe, we arrived at Oppdal kirke at 12:40ish. It’s lovely inside with a lot of wood based ornaments. The smell of wood welcomes you into the church. Chin-Yu has been sitting in the church for awhile when I arrive. There is another milestone; 153 km left.
We headed toward the town along the trail that follows a sidewalk through a residential area. An older, somewhat dishelved gentleman, dressed in work pants and a mostly buttoned plaid shirt over a white undershirt, is throwing twigs from his lawn into the forest across the street from his home. We greet him and he tells us he wants to share something with us. It was odd. I wondered if he was drunk.
We followed him to the side of his house, out of the wind. I wondered if he was going to flash us or something weird. But it was worse! He told us he had a Math question for us! 😱
He asked who wanted to go first, so I pointed at Chin-Yu. He asked her to think of an number, gave some math functions to do with the number, and then guessed her number correctly. When he asked me, I unfortunately messed up a step but when we redid it, he had also guessed my number.
Part 2 involved information about light: what is light, what’s the speed of light (300,000 km/s in a vacuum) and something about aliens (he had read about a landing between Mexico and the States in a paper somewhere). I had to rely on Chin-Yu’s translations.
Chin-Yu told him we had to go but he had a third challenge for us. Both of us failed it but he was successful on his third try (things come in threes, he told us). This test required us to catch a lighter that he released from between his two pointer fingers. Chin-Yu told him she would practice at home, but he told us not to bother as the skill is genetic. 🥸
Despite his efforts to continue his show for us, we politely left the man we dubbed, The Light Wizard, the gatekeeper of our last of four stages of our adventure.
10.9 km, 14:00 pm, we stopped for lunch at Spisbar in Oppdal. I had a homemade veggie burger, made from lentils and chickpeas, which I much prefer to the fake meat products (ick).
After that, we grocery shopped for the next two days, I got a new closing valve for my camelback, and we continued on our way to the campground.
We are in a little cabin with electricity but no water. But there is a toilet and shower house and a cooking/living room house, which we had to ourselves! Again, Chin-Yu whipped up an amazing dinner and we watched the news coverage of the ten year observation of Norway’s terrorist attack where 77 people were singlehandedly murdered by an extremist Norwegian using a bomb and guns in two attacks on July 22, 2011.
May you be filled with loving kindness. May you be filled with love and peace. May you be happy and safe.
Thank you for today.
Stories from the Walk Home 