So...that escalated quickly...
Back up about 2 months...
Chris was heading to Singapore to sort out our shipping to New Zealand. He was slightly worried about heading there because of something called Coronavirus. I didn't think much of it, but obviously didn't want Chris to contract it. He went, was careful and returned no drama. That was the end of that. These things happen a lot in Singapore, but it's an organised place and used to these sort of things.
Fast forward to about a month ago. We were finally packing up our stuff in Bali and saying bye to some of the best people we've met. I was psyching myself up to travel alone with my two boys. I was a little nervous about taking 3 flights on my own with the boys. Not because of the travelling, but more because of the talk of this virus and the fact that having an almost 2-year-old boy and a 3-year-old boy means hands get everywhere and goodness knows what goes in mouths. My solution was to babywear one and strap the other to the stroller...which mainly worked except that all our flights required us to walk up or down steps to and from the plane. Yep...not fun. Well, I survived, we all did and the boys were amazing on all flights. Though the last one was a little tougher on them. For a few days after M would wake up in the middle of the night and think he needed to get on a plane. Bless him.
The night before our final flight, we were at *Scienceworks in Melbourne catching up with some good friends while watching the boys play. My phone starts going crazy, New Zealand had just announced mandatory self-isolation. My family were a bit concerned and my mum casually mentioned that they may place us in a detention centre. Thanks, Mum! Thankfully, we arrived without any talk of detention centres. In fact, we didn't get told to self-isolate at the airport at all. I just a slip of paper with a toll-free number to call if we started feeling unwell. I figured this might have been because we arrived before self-isolation was mandatory? Side note: 1. The passengers on this last plane were the most helpful, they literally took both my backpack and stroller and carried it all the way to the airport building from the plane! (New Zealanders are just so nice).
2. Okay, two side notes: I really felt for the flight attendants and thought they did an amazing job handling customers. We travelled with Jetstar and though the flight was probably more booked than it would normally have been, there were still plenty of empty seats. We were instructed from the very beginning of the flight not to move seats. I understood this to be because if anyone got sick they would be able to track who was sitting close to that person (yes, if one person was sick on that plane it would be likely most people would have gotten sick I think, not sure). For some unknown reason, there were a few people on this 3-hour flight that found this piece of advice really hard to follow and would keep trying to move. Each time the flight attendant would have to speak with them calmly and ask for them to return to their seat. This lasted THE WHOLE FLIGHT, yet the attendants kept their cool and were extremely professional. I was really impressed.
Okay, so we got to Queenstown, had the mandatory Fergburger and the boys absolutely loved the playground by the lake. We went up the Gondola and then made our way to Wanaka. We went to Puzzling World and did the maze, picked up a delicious cookie from Cinema Paradiso and yes, went to the playground here too. While at the playground in Wanaka I received a notification about check-in instructions for our Airbnb the following day. I clicked on it to find that the host had cancelled that very moment...oh dear. I quickly contacted our other hosts to see if we were still able to stay and booked accommodation for the following day in Fraz Joseph. It was when we were in Fraz Joseph that it finally hit me that even though we hadn't been within 1 meter of anyone for longer than 15 minutes that we should be more careful, as we had done a lot of travelling and could be carriers.
Yes, it took me longer than it should have to get there.
So, that night we contacted all our hosts and cancelled our entire 6-week long road trip. They were all really understanding. I hope to one day be able to book with them all again. We then needed to decide where to set ourselves up for the rest of our 14 days. We decided to keep heading north to Nelson, as we would then be closer to North Island to continue our travels when we could. Also, I was hoping it may not be as cold as Queenstown would become over the winter months...which it will be...by a degree or 2. Still very cold.
We booked an Airbnb in Nelson to stay until the end of our self-isolation and then, as it was booked out after that, we would find another place to stay while we looked for rentals. 1 or 2 days into our stay NZ announced the level 4 lockdown...We didn't know what to do. We didn't want to go to Australia because we had chosen to live in New Zealand, but we were still isolating and so couldn't look at rentals and soon there would be no rentals to look at. I decided to contact our hosts to see if the other booking would still be coming with all these changes and if we could take her up on a 6-month rental. She was extremely responsive and agreed to sign us up for 6 months. Sigh of relief! So, we have a home to ride this out in and it's a lovely family home in a beautiful part of the world. We have already made friends with our neighbours (from a distance) too! Sometimes life does help you make lemonade. Yay!
If you're at all interested, which if you've made it this far you might be. A bit of background. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Chris and I made the conscious decision to actively raise our children and in making this decision we realised that wouldn't be possible for us in Singapore. When we were living in Singapore trying to decide where else we would want to live, places like Tasmania and New Zealand came up, but we didn't want to settle on the decision until we'd had some time to decide what was really important to us. This could only happen when we had time to think, which was in Bali. When in Bali the idea of New Zealand never left and it felt right to Chris and I. We didn't know where in New Zealand to settle, so we decided to do an epic road trip to see which places we may like to settle in. I thought North Island, as I'm a girl who's lived all my life in the tropics, so it would be slightly less cold. Our road trip was basically a circuit around North Island... best-laid plans hey. For now, we are here and are happy and surprisingly hot, only time will tell what our next steps will be. Hope that covers it for now.
Oh, and for the record, we do not regret for one second the decision we made to move to New Zealand. We are so impressed with the government's response to everything happening and the clear messages we are getting about everything here. We are Jacinda fans, which is definitely one of the reasons we chose to come here and she has not disappointed yet.
Feel free to leave comments, questions etc. Please be kind.
*if you get a chance to go, it's so great for the little ones. So interesting and interactive. Even the toileting facilities are much better than most.
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