After 3 weeks spent at Heidi and Dave’s, I’m back on the road again. For 3 weeks I got pretty spoiled there with all the good food and the comfort of their home. I also got to spend time with my niece and nephew, Molly and Alfie (Bernese mountain dogs), although Alfie really doesn’t like me. My knee got a lot better but still wasn’t 100% when I left, but it was time I got going again.
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| Me, Heidi, Dave and Johanne (Dave’s mom) |
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| Molly |
Leaving Heidi and Dave’s was very similar to how starting the journey from home felt. It didn’t really feel like it was happening although I knew I was leaving that day. Leaving family and the comfort of the place I had been for the last while was also just as difficult as when I had left home.
After saying a difficult goodbye to Heidi and Dave though, I was off and my trip had resumed. I decided during my time there that my route for the rest of New Brunswick would be along the north shore (Acadia). As I wanted to ease into the days on the bike again with shorter days than I had started with, I only planned on getting to the shore at Shediac and going along the shore to Bouctouche for the day. My mind was full of nothing but thoughts about not being able to the trip, feeling lonely and missing/knowing how I was going to be away from living comfortably again.
Luckily a little after I passed Shediac, I saw a bike coming the other way loaded full of stuff just like mine. The rider pulled over to meet me and introduced himself as Simon. Simon is from Australia and had been on the road for 2 weeks already as he’s bikepacking the Atlantic provinces. He’d also done other trips like this in other parts of Canada plus in Australia. Unfortunately we were headed opposite ways so after 5 minutes or so of chatting we went split off. This was exactly what I needed though. Seeing someone else doing what I was for the first time greatly lifted my mood and made it feel far less lonely knowing that I wasn’t alone in travelling by themself by bike. (Simon has a YouTube channel if anyone is interested: https://youtube.com/@ylandfilms?si=0yZWmeXL_BRsbtj9)
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| Simon |
I continued along in my much better mood and made it to Bouctouche by the afternoon. The road there (and the rest of the north route I’ve been taking) have been very nice for biking as the roads are all paved with good shoulders on them. After spending some time in the library, I found a park to setup camp for the night. By this time all the bad feelings and thoughts from earlier in the day had fully returned. I talked with my family which helped calm the feelings and made the rest of the night easier.
I woke up the next day much calmer and able to focus in the moment. I left mid morning and made it to St. Louis by the early afternoon. It was supposed to rain starting late afternoon/evening so I found a small park under a bridge and setup camp. One lesson I learned from the chaos of my first week is riding/camping when it’s wet out and your cold isn’t overly fun, so I was happy to avoid the rain now. I explored the little village and finally cooked my first supper on the trip (thanks Julie) when it wasn’t raining. With the extra time I had in the day I was able to calm myself more about the trip by just thinking about doing Canada instead of the world. While I still want to do the whole world, I think I would be at peace with just doing Canada if that’s all this trip ends up being. And I’m not saying I’m only doing Canada, I’m just being more open minded about what I’m doing and want to do.
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| My setup in St.Louis |
The next day was carrying on pretty uneventfully until later in the morning while riding along the highway I spotted a moose ahead in the distance crossing the road. Unfortunately I wasn’t overly close when I spotted it and it had disappeared by the time I got up to where it would have been. Seeing both a moose and bear in the wild were 2 things I was really hoping to be able to see on this trip and now I could one of these off the list. I reached Miramichi by the early afternoon and spent my time there in the library before setting up camp before it started to rain.
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| The bridge in Miramichi |
I left the next morning with the goal to make it to Bathurst. After about 50km into the ride, I was getting quite tired. My mind was focused on Bathurst though so after a break I pushed on with my primary thought being to get to Bathurst. This is how I’d been riding up to this point where I’ve been more focused on getting to a destination than just being in the moment and listening to what I want or need.
I would soon reach Bathurst and looked for somewhere to sent my tent up, but all the places I tried at first were no good. During the search I noticed my front tire was getting flat so I pumped it back up and continued looking. My mind had been getting worse again as I had been mostly unhappily trudging along for a while and by this point (especially with the bad vibe Bathurst had been giving off) my mind was full of mostly bad thoughts as my worn out will really didn’t have it to fight back anymore. Both my mind and body really wanted a break at this point and I gave in and got a hotel for the night.
Once I got a room and loaded my bike and my stuff in I noticed my tire had deflated again. Even though I’ve done a lot of work with my bike, somehow I’d yet to ever get a flat tire that needed patching until now. After examining it I found a wire/staple had punctured it and got it fixed up after that.
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| My first puncture |
When I woke the next morning I noticed my knee was hurting some again. I felt pretty crushed by this and lost my desire to want to do anything for the day. After doing some thinking I decided on staying another day to rest it and also I clearly needs to make changes. The way I had been going about the trip to now just wasn’t sustainable. My body wasn’t handling it and my mind had regularly been screaming at me to just stop and go home.
After spending a good chunk of the day thinking and reflecting, I believe I came up with a plan on how to go about the journey so that I could enjoy and want to keep doing it. I realized I had really been taking much in and was too focused on the destination and that needed to change. I needed to go slower, not push so hard and when I feel fatigue setting in to take a proper break to be able to recharge. Another thing I realize now that I’ve started, is that putting the expectation of doing all of the world in this single trip is a lot to demand and dump on myself. Thinking about just doing Canada (even that feels like quite a bit but far more doable) is far easier to swallow. If I make the changes and enjoy the trip how I think I was going to and keep going and do the whole world, great. If I don’t feel like I wanna keep going after hitting Vancouver, great, riding across Canada is no easy feat and I’ll still have seen and been able to learn quite a bit. Quite frankly all these changes really were was how I envisioned myself going about the trip before I began and now I’ve realized I haven’t been going about it like I wanted to at all.
The next day my knee felt good again and I left with no goal of where I wanted to get to for the day. Shortly after I started I noticed a boardwalk and beach and Beresford and decided to check it out. It was a very nice long beach with a nice view of Quebec that I was very happy I decided to stop at and explore instead of just continuing along the road. Later in the day a car pulled off ahead of me and a man (Lloyd) got out and asked if I wanted a beer. I don’t drink so I declined but he instead offered water, so I accepted and followed him to his place just up a hill. Lloyd and his friend Mark were very nice and talkative people and even ended up giving me a couple apples too. They had some work to do though so after talking for a while, they started back up and I headed back off on the road again.
Travelling at a much easier pace throughout the day plus taking a couple longer breaks I found myself not tiring like I had been, so I was able to make it to Dalhousie in the evening without hurting or any knee problems. I found a spot to put up my tent uphill (Dalhousie is basically one big hill) with a great view where one way I could see a lot of what I had just cycled in the day and the other way was Quebec, which was much closer now.
The next morning I was off pretty early and quickly reached Campbellton, the end of New Brunswick for me. This I believe will be the end of me being able to properly communicate in English for a while so Quebec will provide a whole new kind of challenge. While my time in New Brunswick has been mixed I can say I believe I’ll remember it for the good and the positive changes I hope to have made here.
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| The Quebec border |
Distance Traversed: 354.3km
Total Distance Traversed: 852.3km