8-14 Aug, Mo I Rana – Recovery from injury

On 8 Aug I went to the clinic and saw a Doctor. Unfortunately he did not inspire confidence when he started diagnosing me before listening to my symptoms. He went straight to my calves and said he was checking for Deep Vein Thrombosis, I would have thought an unusual diagnosis for someone hiking. Then he examined me, seeming to ignore when I said it hurt. He was adamant there was no stress fracture and said it was likely ligament strain from overuse. I tried to get an indication of how long I needed to rest and what the impact would be of continuing but perhaps there was a language barrier.I decided to rest completely for 4 days and see how it went. After 4 days it wasn’t better and I knew I would need to rest for longer. Staying at the hotel would be too expensive and I needed to get my resupply package from Royvick before the Post Office 2 week limit so I hired a car for a day and drove there. As well as the package I had mailed myself there was the replacement tent poles that Zpack had sent me and my shoes which I had asked Eef to send to me.I got a free upgrade of car which was nice and they dropped it off at the hotel so I did not have to walk anywhere.It was raining quite hard most of the journey but it was a pretty drive. Some of the observations about Norway roads are: there are no passing lanes so you get stuck behind slow vehicles for long periods, the corners do not have recommended speeds so you don’t know if they are gentle or sharp corners, off the main road the roads are narrow and they drive on the wrong side of the road (for a Kiwi).Watch out for Elk (moose)4 horses going for a walkOnce I picked up my resupply package I drove to two points on the trail and buried resupply caches to lighten my load for the next section. I just hope some animal does not help themselves to it.Before handing back the car I explored a couple of spots on the edge of town and dropped my pack and supplies in the forest. I handed the car back, at a petrol station, got a pizza and then walked back to my pack. Thankfully it now stopped raining and I found a flat spot to set up camp. I then stayed in my tent for the next 3 days.This was my temporary repair of broken tent pole which lasted three weeks (ZPacks excellent service dispatched new poles as soon as I reported the issue)Campsite at the edge of the city – cheaper than a hotelOn 14 Aug I went for a walk back in town and my foot felt good so tomorrow I will hit the trail again. I spent several hours at a cafe charging my phone and left my power bank with them to charge overnight and pick up tomorrow.Not much tread left on these shoes but they held up well for 1200kmOld and newOld and newNew and old. The shoes are the same size, just the new ones are still flat andt he old ones curved

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