TDC Revisited Day 11

Campbellton to New Glasgow

In 2013, the Tour du Canada naturally included Prince Edward Island as part of the route. As we have both been to PEI several times, despite it being a beautiful province, due to timing issues we opted to bypass it on today’s drive. In 2013, I arrived at one end of PEI, via the Confederation Bridge, on one day and left the next day via ferry from the other end of the island. The route that day went through New Glasgow. Today’s drive took us through the remaining part of New Brunswick into Nova Scotia to New Glasgow. My original blog posts from 2013 covering the route are below. I have included the two posts covering PEI.

• Campbellton to Petit-Rocher
• Petit-Rocher to Saint-Louis de Kent
• Saint-Louis de Kent Rest Day
• Saint-Louis de Kent to Murray Beach
• PEI Day 1
• PEI Day 2

I started the day with a few photos around Campbellton. I remembered the fisherman and the giant salmon from 2013.

Much of the drive today was on Hwy 134. The route took us past Saint-Louis-de-Kent where we camped and had a day off in 2013. A former work colleague and his wife drove up from Moncton to take me out for lunch on the day off.

We stopped for lunch today at a picnic area right beside the bridge at Saint-Louis-de-Kent. I have another great memory of this bridge. As we started down the highway, in 2013, we passed a welcome sign from a TdC 1997 rider. It was always nice to experience these moments on the tour. It was a reminder that the tour was much greater than our group. There is a much larger group out there that has had this amazing experience.

Much of our route followed the Acadian Coastal Drive in honor of the Acadian heritage of New Brunswick. Acadian flags were everywhere along the route.

Further down the road, Shediac is home to a giant lobster. It warranted a brief stop for photos, both today and in 2013.

A little while later we passed Murray Beach Provincial Park and Campground where, in 2013, we camped before crossing the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island the next morning. Today, when we got to the intersection with the Trans Canada Highway, we turned right, away from the bridge, departing from the TdC 2013 route.

Leaving the bridge behind us, we soon crossed into Nova Scotia and carried on the New Glasgow for the night.

It has been a long 11 days getting to this point. In 2013, the entire tour took about 10 weeks. What we covered in 11 days comprised about 8 weeks of riding from that summer. We did have to miss a few chunks of the route, but overall, I think I was able to provide Susan a pretty good flavor of what we experienced on the ride. It was a lot of fun for me to recreate the route, even if we zipped by much of it at highway speeds. The drive brought back a lot of wonderful memories, both of my fellow riders and the people we met along the way. The warmth with which we were greeted in many communities was overwhelming. It truly made me proud to be Canadian – both then and now!

I would like to thank all of my fellow 2013 Tour du Canada participants who helped, in a huge way, to make that summer one of the most amazing and memorable adventures of my life. I will not forget that summer nor my fellow riders. Whether we’ve kept in touch or not, you are an important part of my life!

I started this series of posts with a photo of our group, and I’ll wrap up with re-posting that photo.