Travelling and the coronavirus

We’re fine, but house-sitting has stopped for a while.  We had several months of house-sitting lined up around Sydney Harbour and in Sydney’s northern beaches, but, due to the virus, it has all fallen through as everyone has had to cancel their travels, or has had their travels cancelled for them. 

 It's nice to be back on the Sunshine Coast for a while, anyway – the air and the water are warm, and the lifestyle is idyllic!

We’ve been just keeping ahead of the coronavirus for months, now, mostly coincidentally.

We were in northern Italy for all of October 2019; although, well before the virus was there.  We then went to southern Spain for three-and-a-half months, and, although this was also before the virus got to Spain, it still affected us a little – the hosts for our last house-sit, in Caleta de Velez in February, had intended to go to the Philippines, but decided before we arrived that it had become too dangerous to travel there due to the virus.  Fortunately for us, rather than cancelling the house-sit  they elected to go to the Canary Islands instead, probably partly to keep their commitment with us (and probably partly because we had just been to the Canary Islands ourselves and told them what an interesting place it is).    

We just slipped out of Europe at the last moment (late February), it seems in retrospect – we had originally booked to return to Australia in early November 2019, but rebooked in October to extend the trip to February 2020.  Of course we had no idea when we made that booking in October what was about to happen, and luckily booked a departure from Europe for about as late as you would want to go – self-imposed quarantine was required shortly after we arrived in Australia, so we were lucky to miss that.

Our plane from London to Tokyo (which glided into Haneda Airport somewhere near the Diamond Princess cruise ship) was less than half full, while the plane from Tokyo to Sydney was full of Australians heading home.  By the way, after months in Italy and Spain, and flying with Japanese people on Japanese Airlines, I’d forgotten how big Australians are!  They were sitting all around me at the gate and they are huge, not so much fat (although many were) but big framed and big boned.  Must be due to two-hundred years and several generations of eating all that protein-rich beef and lamb!

Even when we got into Australia the effect of the virus was following us. After a couple of days in Sydney we went to a houses-sit in Warrnambool, on the south coast of Australia.  Our house-sit host there had also cancelled her original overseas travel plans and had decided to spend the time in nearby Melbourne instead, again, probably partially to keep her commitment with us.  After three weeks she decided that even Melbourne was too risky (she is in her 70s) and came back early.  By this point in time all our Sydney house-sits had evaporated, and that’s when we decided to head for Queensland and the Sunshine Coast to wait out the pandemic. 

We headed off for Melbourne Airport on almost the last train out of Warrnambool (they stopped running the trains the next day and replaced them with a bus) and caught one of the last regular fights around the country (the arrival and departure boards at the airports were full of cancelled flights).  The normally busy train was nearly empty, but the plane was nearly full of people escaping into Queensland.  

And finally, we managed to fly into Queensland about eight hours before authorities officially closed the border, which would have required two weeks of self-imposed quarantine.

So, here we are ‘stuck’ in isolation on the Sunshine Coast.  We are over the road from Kings Beach with a view of the breaking waves.  I haven’t been anywhere with warm water for nearly four years, and the water here is 25˚C, and the weather is warm and sunny, so  I’m going over the road for a bodysurf a couple of times a day, and walking around to Bulcock Beach on Pumicestone Passage for a long flat-water swim most days.  We also walk along the cliff-top path to Moffat Beach, or walk to Golden Beach every couple of days. 

Here are a few pictures to give you the idea:

That’s Moreton Island just visible on the horizon behind the body surfers. 

You may think that this looks like lockdown isn’t happening on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast; but exercising is allowed, and surfing is considered to be okay.  Mostly, people in the water are well over the minimum distance of 1.5 metres apart.  Hanging around in groups, and relaxing on the beach is not okay, and the surf lifesavers are constantly reading out government warnings about staying outside unnecessarily.

Walking on the walking paths for exercise is also okay, as long as you keep that minimum distance of 1.5 metres apart from other walkers.  Some people get it and walk single file on the left-hand side of the path; others act like the whole coronavirus thing is just something entertaining on the news that is only happening somewhere else, and will spread across the path and squeeze past you at any opportunity.  Runners are the worst for this!

Here’s some more of the scenery I've seen while walking around Caloundra:

Caloundra is near the main shipping channel accessing the nearby Port of Brisbane, so large cargo ships and cruise ships continuously pass by (not so many cruise ships at the moment). 

Now I’m in lockdown on the Sunshine Coast, maybe I’ll get around to my backlog of posts for The Journey and the Destination!

If you enjoyed this blog post, you can find related posts under these headings:

Australia, Queensland,  House-sitting. 

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