Springfield to Newtown   |   Campsite: 45.83018° N, 65.44755° W

The morning is cool at 8 degrees, but the Arc’Teryx puffy jacket keeps me warm. I didn’t put the rain fly on the tent last night, so naturally the morning has to be foggy and wet, full of dew, resulting in a tent coated in beaded water. I am ready and walking by 5:30 down Highway 124 toward the town of Norton. I decide to take a chance on a gas station just off the Trans-Canada Highway—a bit out of my way—and I am tickled to find an NB Liquor outlet attached. I enjoy a pint with cooked rice and noodles and pack a pint for the road. From the town of Springfield to the village of Norton I’ve walked 16 km, with an upcoming 19 km to the town of Sussex, which is the focus of the day. As I sit eating and resting on a picnic table, the day has become sunny with a flawless blue sky. I believe this is the first sun I’ve seen in the province of New Brunswick! I am back out walking by 9:10 northeast after a 40-minute break, moving up “Riverside Drive E” which will follow the Trans-Canada 1 highway the full distance to Sussex. And that is exactly what I do. The walk is good with wide, level, comfortable roadside shoulders. I arrive in Sussex around 1:30, finding wifi in order to post to the blog, transcribe a future post, transfer image files from my phone to my laptop, and back up files to the external hard drive. After all this work is looked after, I map out the afternoon and tomorrow morning. The city of Moncton is in sight, and in two days I will be there. I met a man named Robert in Sussex who works with military veterans. He was sitting with another man, and it sounded as though they were developing fundraising initiatives. I asked about the roads up ahead into the town of Petticodiac, and they both recommended walking the Trans-Canada Highway, saying that it would ultimately be safer than the much narrower roads, offering wider shoulders on which to walk. Robert seemed impressed that I was walking, and asked why I didn’t choose to cycle—a good question, one I’ve been thinking more and more about as a possible new challenge in the future. I thanked them both and, filling up the bottles with water, exited the air-conditioned restaurant. The afternoon was now hot as I made my way through the town of Sussex to the north side and onto Highway 890. I just wasn’t ready for the speed and noise of the Trans-Canada Highway yet. I set back out into the sun and now hot 20-degree afternoon, walking Highway 890 to the hamlet of Smiths Creek and on to the hamlet of Newtown where I find a church that appears as though it has not been used in decades. By 6:00 the tent is up as a massive industrial transport growls and snarls for over an hour in the adjacent property while being loaded up with some kind of industrial equipment. I journal the day down, map tomorrow’s walk to the town of Petticodiac, and get the hell off of my feet!

Today’s distance walked: 48.35 km    |    Total distance walked: 1,790.26 km

“I really like what you are doing?” – Robert, a man I met in the town of Sussex