Upper Gagetown to Springfield   |   Campsite: 45.67735° N, 65.81607° W

The day began a little late. By 6:10 I was walking, having had a good rest over the night. The morning was cool at 5 degrees. Traffic was light and the road was narrow. The 14 km distance to a small village called Jemseg was made incident-free. Owen was a man I met at exactly the right time. I had been following Highway 105 and along the walk, it began to appear less and less in use. Tree growth began to billow out over the road and plants were seen ever more commonly growing up from the cracks in the asphalt. The road had—at one time—continued over the Trans-Canada Highway by way of an overpass. However, the structure, broken down and fenced off, was no longer in use. The roadway continued from this point as a gravel path, and I decided to follow it as the direction still aligned with where I needed to go. Eventually, however, the river the road had been following impeded its progress, and the path came to an end. At this point, I had no alternative but to turn back the way I had come to retrace the past five km of road. This is when I met Owen. He was driving a vehicle with a fishing boat mounted to a trailer. A face emerged from a window as the vehicle slowed to a stop, and a man smiling says, “Well I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” I explain what I was doing and he offered to ferry me to the other side of the river where a trail would take me back to the road. Owen had decided to take a half-day off work in order to fish the river before attending to a few service calls. He didn’t live in the area—it was a complete chance that I ran into him. His was the only vehicle I had seen driving along this roadway all morning. As he was preparing the boat he looked at me and said, “You know, I have to ask: what in the heck are you doing way out here?” I told my story and we eased into conversation. He told me that he traveled to Newfoundland with his father last year, mentioning that the people of NL were the best l would ever meet. They were friendly, funny, hospitable, and narrators of the best stories. He ferried me over, I climbed out of the boat, thanked him, wished him luck on his morning fishing, and I was miraculously able to continue walking without having to backtrack. What an incredible instance of grace, an example of the trail providing! I arrived at the village of Jemseg, continuing on to the junction of Cambridge-Narrows. Two large, steep hills had gotten the best of me on this leg of the walk, and had me limping to the corner store by 11:20. I bought a few pints, found a picnic table at a closed food truck restaurant across the street, and cooked lunch while journaling out the morning of grace. I finished by 12:15 and began walking Highway 695. The walk to a hamlet called Springfield was difficult—tiring with three large hills to climb. Earlier this morning I had climbed 1,614 metres of hills on the road to Cambridge-Narrows. With that afternoon’s climbing of over 2,000 metres, the day turned into a workout. I did find a fast-moving stream from which I was able to filter many bottles of water, increasing my confidence over the final kilometres of walking into Springfield as the water would come in handy for tomorrow’s breakfast, not to mention the 30 km walk to the town of Sussex. This would be an important stop, as it was the final water and food refill for the final 85 km stretch into the city of Moncton. I arrived in the small town of Springfield around 4:30 and had the tent up by 5:00. It was most likely too early, but I was just gassed from the day’s workout and was focused on getting as horizontal as soon as possible. I journal, read, map out the route for tomorrow, and fell asleep easily.

Today’s distance walked: 48.44 km    |    Total distance walked: 1,741.91 km

The trail provides and the Dude abides.