Once again I want to express that my ‘problems’ are so insignificant to what so many people are going through, and special BIG LOVE, to all my awesome healthcare professionals back home, having to carry on ??
And so to me and my midlife gap year. While in Bali, as I said in my last coronavirus ‘special’, I was becoming very aware of a fast changing world, and started becoming a bit obsessed with watching the news to see what was occurring.
I had planned on flying to Melbourne where I was going to spend 5 days, sightseeing etc, aware that a lot of museums etc may well be closed. From Melbourne, I was going to hire a car and spend 2 weeks doing a road trip to Brisbane. I was going to stop off on route in Sydney to visit an anaesthetist I used to work with in Brighton. He now lives nearby, in the blue mountains, and I’d also see some of Sydney’s sights. From Sydney my road trip would continue onto Brisbane, where I would be staying a few days with an old school friend, before flying to New Zealand to start 14 days self isolation ?.
24 hours later… new plan. Australia announced that everyone arriving from abroad had to now go into 14 day self isolation ☹️. I cancelled my car hire, all the accommodation I had booked and started looking for an airbnb that I could isolate in for 14 days. I found one in St Kilda, that looked nice and contacted the host to ask if she was happy to take my booking. She was….I’m sure, because the tourist market must have really crashed. She also kindly let me check in early. I then booked a flight to Brisbane for day 16, so I could still stay with my friend before flying to NZ. This would give me 24 hours to runaround Melbourne and see the sights!!! I wasn’t too upset about not seeing much of Australia, because I had never really planned on visiting, it was more a stop over to break up the journey to NZ.
24 hours later, I’m landing in Australia. I transferred to my airbnb and switched on the news. New Zealand had now closed it’s borders to all non-citizens ☹️ and within 24 hours, Australia was going to close it’s borders…..phew, made it just in time. I cancelled my flight to NZ.
So here I am Day 2 of self-isolation, and I’m not making any more plans, until the isolation is over and I can see what position the world is in. I hope, I can spend some extra time in OZ, do that road trip, after all, get to Brisbane etc. Whatever happens though….Australia will be my last country, unless some miracle happens and the world re-opens in the next month.
The next problem will be trying to find anyone who’s flying back to the UK!!! In the meantime, I’m finding pictures to text to my family ??
Still loving your updates, I hope you enjoy Australia and don’t stress too much about what’s happening. If you do manage to get to Brisbane and have some time, head to a place called Noosa, its lovely and the beaches are great ❤️ xxx
I will add it too my list ??