Follow Ramesh's Journey

This morning, Rotarians Francine and Errol Kanhai treated us to breakfast at their restaurant in Saint-André. Conrad and Linda Toner joined us as well, and the Rotary Club of Grand Falls presented a donation to Cycle to Walk. It’s very encouraging to not even be officially into a new Province and already be receiving so much support! (You see, as soon as breakfast finished, the team drove back into Québec to pick up where we left off yesterday).

I may disappoint some Yukoners by saying this, but one of the biggest challenges I’ve had to tackle over the past couple of days is the heat! Today was another hot day – the temperature reached 28 degrees and stayed that way for most of the day. We crossed into New Brunswick just before lunch, and we found that this province is not nearly as flat as Québec! We are just ecstatic to be sharing the message of Cycle to Walk with yet another province. It feels weird, though, for all of us to cross a provincial border after just two weeks: Before Québec we had been in (enormous) Ontario for two months!

At the border, we took a picture before stopping at the visitor reception centre to sign the guest book and change our provincial flags on the hand-cycle and on the support vehicle. We then proceeded with the day’s cycle and finished off in the Grand Falls area. Today was a tough one. We finished it with milkshakes.

The team drove into Perth Andover and was welcomed warmly by representatives from Rotary, the Elks, Masons, and other members of the community at the local civic centre. There, we had a wonderful opportunity to share the message of the campaign, answer questions, and meet with some very nice people. Thank you to both the Rotary Club of Perth Andover and the Perth Andover Motor Inn for donating rooms to the team for the night and thanks to everyone who made financial donations to Cycle to Walk.

What I particularly enjoyed about tonight’s group was that it was very well-rounded with numerous service clubs represented along with members of the community in general. We live in a global community, and it takes more than one person, more than one service club and more than one organization to address the issue of polio. No matter what role we play in our community we all need to work together to eradicate polio!

As we are now in a new province, I’d like to take this time to thank Hélène Beaulieu for all the work she did as our Route Champion for the Province of Quebec! I’d like to welcome Carmen Gibbons, a Cycle to Walk Board of Director and our Maritime Route Champion. Carmen has already spent hours and hours corresponding with people in the Atlantic Provinces to set up some exciting events and opportunities for the Cycle to Walk campaign. Thanks, Carmen, for all your great work. We look forward to working with you more as the campaign approaches Newfoundland and Labrador. If anyone would like to help organize or plan a Cycle to Walk event, please contact campaign headquarters in Whitehorse.