Travel in COVID times

We had our final monitored walk in the morning and imagined what better walks we'd be enjoying elsewhere soon. In two days we'd be going for a walk on the beach with a view of Kapiti island, no one watching us, without a mask and for as long as wanted. Bring it on. After a day of working we started packing things up and getting sorted for the last steps in the morning: final packup, health check and going through the military-overseen process of getting our letter of release. After that it would be off to the airport. The TV news led with a main story about a new community transmission case in Auckland city. The city had gone into high alert, with CBD workers advised to work from home the next day, and intensive testing and tracing underway. It was an interesting contrast to Melbourne where such individual cases hadn't really gained as much attention, but I can understand that New Zealand has truly eradicated the virus and so every time there is a new case that pops up, usu...

In the morning we received our negative Covid results from our tests two days earlier. Always good to have such good news delivered to your front door by the army. So now we're all set for being cleared to leave on Friday. Freedom is feeling very close although still a bit of a surreal concept. The rest of the day was spent doing work, including lots of drop outs while having an online meeting (I'm very much looking forward to having reliable internet again!). What we see going on in other peoples’ rooms On our monitored walks we get to see into other peoples rooms when they have their curtains open. It has been interesting watching peoples' lives unfold in this strange environment that we all find ourselves. The things we've noticed are: Families with small kids are probably doing it the toughest:  The thought of having one or more small kids to keep entertained in a single room must be hard, especially if one parent needs to work. We see lots of playing going on, espe...

The end of our isolation is feeling very close now. We haven't had our final Covid results back yet but we're hoping they're not far off. Today was a day of working and watching the afternoon rain. I had an interesting chat with one of the army guys working here. Within a few minutes we had discovered we both knew someone from his hometown, which reminded me of how interconnected New Zealand is. He was saying that the army are concerned about losing personnel because so many have been pulled in to support the isolation and quarantine effort, which is not what they'd probably envisaged doing when they joined up. The challenge will be to keep them engaged and morale up until things return to normal. Let's be realistic -- that probably won't be the case until a vaccine is widely available. Things to have in isolation If you happen to find yourself heading to an isolation facility anytime soon, here is a list of things we have found useful and those things we wish w...

We had our Day 11 of isolation Covid tests in the morning. If these come back negative then we'll be officially allowed to leave in a few days. The comfort factor during the test was definitely lower than our Day 3 tests, so we lucked in with the first nurse who had the very steadiest of hands. We also got quizzed about our onward travel plans by one of the military folk -- I imagine they want to know where everyone is going so they can trace all movements in case there is an outbreak. We also spotted some people on their way out which made us jealous, but also excited about hopefully leaving soon ... The distortion of time and space in isolation We've really noticed the effect of living in one room for the last 11 days and the lack of variety from day to day. The only certainties are the double knocks to advise there are food bags outside our door. Most days we also go walking and then there are semi-regular temperature and Covid checks. Other than that the only variety is wha...

It was great to wake up and learn that Biden had been elected president. We'd been paying more attention to the US election than normal, both because it was a particularly interesting election but also because we'd had a bit of time on our hands. It has also been great seeing how well our home town of Melbourne is going with the virus and we listened to the update from the premier Dan Andrews about the further easing of restrictions. It seems that when we get home it will be a very changed city from the one we left a couple of weeks ago. Although I'd received a negative Covid test result yesterday, it was only today that we were officially released from isolation and allowed to leave the room as there had been the need to wait 48 hours since the last symptoms had been observed. This was brilliant and so we all went out for a walk, plus later in the day sat in the central park area and took in the sunshine. The Hotel The Holiday Inn Auckland Airport in Mangere where we'r...

Thankfully my one-off Covid test results came back negative which was good news. Clearly I'd just had a cold but what terrible timing for it to happen during isolation. Our rooms aren't serviced and so we've been doing all the cleaning, dishes, changing towels and linen etc. ourselves. For some reason vacuum cleaners aren't available and so our well trodden carpet has been getting grottier by the day. Today I was down on my hands and knees picking up what I could to try and slightly decrease the grot factor. Every night this week we've been hearing the sound of fireworks being set off. We haven't seen a single firework in the sky however. It is likely that all the action is happening in the parkland and residential area to the north of where we are (but we are facing south), and the sound is being bounced off the huge concrete warehouse wall that we can see from our room. Passing the time We've been enjoying taking turns to choose movies to watch, which has ...