Follow Ramesh's Journey

It was a sunny and gorgeous day in the St. John’s area today. It may sound funny, but I truly feel as though we’re in Newfoundland now. Our route took us through picturesque Petty Harbour – a lovely little fishing community. Chris Wright ran alongside me for a good part of the ride.

While in Petty Harbour, the team stopped by the water to enjoy the view and take some pictures. It was a treat to speak with several friendly locals who had just returned from fishing. Some of them had already heard of Cycle to Walk on the news and were thrilled that we’d stopped to say hello. To our surprise, NTV News’ Donnie Decker was there, and we arranged an interview on the spot before he followed us on the ride out of town.

During the long climb out of Petty Harbour, a number of children came out with their bikes and cycled alongside me. Many of them gave donations, and encouraged me to keep going, saying, ‘You’re almost there.’ One young man came up to me and said, “I’m happy for you – you’re about to complete Terry Fox’s dream.” I didn’t know what to say back to him.
At the end of the ride it was hard to believe that Doug had marked our line on the road for the very last time. It won’t be necessary to mark anything on Wednesday, as the team will have arrived at our final destination point – Cape Spear!!

September 27, 1982 was the day I arrived in Canada after my adoption from India. It would be years before I would walk because of the effects of polio. Today is 26 years later – September 27th, 2008. I’m 3.7 km away from having hand cycled across Canada to share my experience with polio with the nation. Children who live where I was born and elsewhere in the world continue to be paralyzed and die because of this horrible disease. Please, Canada, let us not forget that we need to be global leaders in eradicating polio.