This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Category Archives: 2020 and after


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2020 Life and Travels March

MARCH 2020

The month began with news of the first death in Australia from the new virus – a man who had contracted it as a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, and been repatriated through Darwin quarantine.

We continued life almost as normal, mostly centred on care of the garden, with regular watering still needed. Our water bills here were much higher than we’d had in Melbourne, for sure. But as the month wore on, began to restrict our outings, even before it was mandated.

Mid-month, with autumn in sight, made a foray to a local nursery for stock for my garden, to be planted as soon as the weather begins to cool: correas, callistemon, eremophilia. Couldn’t find any vegie seed though, so ordered some online from Tasmania.

Eremophilla

I had been helping grandson with his General Maths and was pleased when his first official result for some course work was 77%. Grandma did make a difference!

Melbourne’s summer of sport was drawing to a close. John was looking forward to the start of the AFL football season and studying the form of his beloved Carlton’s players.

Amid all this normality, it was impossible to realize just how quickly life would change.

Correa

Then, gradually, news of virus cases began to feature in the daily news. It was rather scary to hear that there were nine cases in the Greater Bendigo area – all travellers returned from overseas.

I started to buy a few extra packs of meat with the weekly shop, to ensure some reserves in the meat freezer.

The World Health Organization declared there was a pandemic underway. Comparisons were made with the Spanish Influenza outbreak that took such a dreadful toll soon after World War 1.

Reality intruded upon Melbourne when the motor racing Grand Prix was abruptly cancelled – after all the teams, supporters and so on had arrived – and just before practice was due to start, with patrons being turned away at the gates. Somebody, somewhere in officialdom, had decided that such a large crowd gathering might be unwise.

I made a special trip to the supermarket to stock up on powdered milk, bread flour, pasta, breakfast cereal and some extra canned goods. No other shoppers appeared to be doing the same though. Yet.

In Melbourne, work on Bus had stalled, waiting on the extra fibre glass work to be done.

John had been heavily involved for months now, planning the inaugural local Autumn Festival, to be held in the grounds of a local winery in May. They decided, in light of the way events were headed, to cancel it.

Mid-month, restrictions began. A novelty at first, they were to become far too familiar before much longer. Bans on large gatherings were imposed. Then on smaller gatherings. And visiting aged care homes. Then events cascaded…

All sorts of stories circulated about the transmission of this viral illness. It was unclear to what extent it was airborne, whether it was spread through touch and physical contamination, even, of goods in shops. For a short time, it was advised we should clean everything coming into the house! The groceries were unpacked outside and wiped “clean” before putting them away inside. I had worn protective gloves and a face mask to the shops – luckily, I had a few face masks put away, intended to be used when handling potting mix.

The Australian Government issued warnings to Australians overseas to come home whilst they still could. It seemed pretty obvious that with reduced travel and rapidly declining tourism, there would soon be greatly reduced airline services – which could make it harder for people to come home.

Shortly after that warning, the Government closed our borders to all non-residents. Travellers returning were asked to quarantine themselves at home for two weeks. Unfortunately, this relied on common sense, honesty, and concern for others. It was quickly apparent that there were those who had none of these qualities, but who were determined not to have their normal social activities curtailed in any way by consideration for others. A group of Victorians returning from a ski holiday in the US, proceeded to immediately throw a house party. Some of their guests received more than a good time! Although this gained plenty of publicity, unfortunately there was no naming of names. That would have been a good punishment, but I guess there was enough other information for locals and most of their acquaintances to figure out who they were. Not to mention infections!

We queried John’s daughter, on post in Washington DC, about whether she would be returned home. No – her role was one that required her to remain there, one of only a handful of staff left at the Embassy.

On 19th March occurred an event truly unbelievable for the ineptitude and stupidity of the various authorities involved, although it was merely the first incompetence of many to come. The ship Ruby Princess docked in Sydney after a cruise. Despite having cases of the virus on board, 2700 passengers were allowed to leave without any testing or restriction, and proceeded to travel to their homes all over the country. Soon, there were over 100 cases detected in one week, across the nation – and the thing was galloping out of control.

Lockdown began in Vic. All non-essential activities were cancelled. People had to practice social distancing – i.e. stay 1.5 metres away from anyone else. Another new term that was to become boringly familiar. Schools were closed early for the Term 1 break. Across Australia, gathering places for people were closed – gyms, cafes, hotels, cinemas. Football would be played without spectators! Special testing stations for the virus were being set up everywhere, as tests were being developed that involved nose swabs.

It’s an ill wind…daughter in law was working enormous hours, as her workplace started to churn out all the new signage needed – for testing stations, businesses, hospitals – and making plastic protective barriers for same.

With the boys home from school, daughter stayed with them in the day, then went to work in the late afternoon, into the night. With people being put off work due to shut downs, many at Centrelink had been taken off their normal duties, to be trained in Newstart allowance, for the expected increase in unemployed.

We had the televised spectacle of people fighting in supermarket aisles – over toilet paper! Who would have thought a possible shortage of same would panic people the most? I thought back to my childhood, when torn up telephone books, newspapers and the like, were the staple of the home dunny…when did we become so reliant on soft tissue?

Not 3ply, but works…

By now, there was much speculation about the origins of this virus, now called Covid-19. Pretty obvious it had begun in China. But exactly when and how was unclear. Was it naturally occurring in animals and transmitted to humans via the so-called “wet” markets? Or had it escaped from a lab? Exact details of events and sequences in China seemed shrouded in mystery, which only fuelled suspicions in the rest of the world.

On social media, I shared on a post that said “You thought dogs were hard to train…Look at all the people who can’t sit and stay”.


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2020 Life and Travels February

2020     FEBRUARY

Grandson showed no ill effects from his overseas travel, and commenced his Year 11 studies. School getting serious now.

It was rather a strange month, with all sorts of news rumours circulating about this apparently new Chinese virus. I think most people were like us – not sure how seriously we needed to take it, so just continued with our normal lives, initially. The World Health Organization declared there was a global health emergency. Our government banned people travelling from China who were not Australian citizens or visa holders.

Early in the month came the news of a cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, with a rapidly growing outbreak of this virus on board, having to quarantine offshore Japan. After a couple of weeks, passengers were evacuated to their home countries, with the Australians being quarantined at the Howard Springs immigration centre in Darwin.  It did not take much imagination to realize that the environment on such large cruise ships lent itself to the spread of bugs. I wondered for how long now cruising would remain such a popular activity for older Australians?

John’s younger daughter moved back to Melbourne.

Bus had been sitting in its shelter since our abortive trip last year. Our neighbours were planning a big caravan trip to northern Australia over winter. We discussed whether we’d travel this year. Neither of us was particularly keen on the idea. I think we were finding life in our patch of Bendigo so pleasant that the urge to get away for a while was reduced.

Now that we had become less active – and John had given up bowls – there were fewer things to prevent boredom when parked up somewhere. Last year’s trip had shown that. I had also battled to sleep well with the partner’s increasingly loud snoring at such close quarters. I was convinced he had developed sleep apnea.

We decided Bus was just money depreciating in the driveway, and we’d sell it. Big decision…

I suspected the woodworker had his eye on the roofed bus area as an extension of his shed – or did I just have an overly suspicious mind?

Bus sitting in its shelter. Three bare apple tree trunks too

OK – so the process began. Had no idea it would actually take almost a year!

Would need a Roadworthy Certificate. I couldn’t find anywhere in Bendigo that could handle a vehicle of this size for same. John decided he’d take it to our Melbourne mechanic, who confirmed he could do it. We knew he would do a good job of any repairs needed.

But first, Bus had to go over weighbridge. None in Bendigo – really?

Mid-month, John drove Bus to Rochester to weighbridge, then turned around and took it down to Bayswater. We’d arranged for him to stay overnight with friend M, then she would drive him back here and stay for a few days. That worked well.

Bus was actually much lighter than I’d thought, coming in around 3.5 tonnes. The interior timber must have mostly been a lightweight composite, not solid wood.

Then another snag…as I’d suspected, Bus would need the bifold door replaced by one that was outward opening, more caravan style, in order to gain the RWC. Several years ago, I had been requesting John that we get this done – there was a place in Healesville that did this. But he hadn’t wanted to go to the expense. Now, that place had shut down, and it wasn’t easy to source a door that would relatively easily fit a Coaster. After quite a bit of research, I ordered one from a place on the NSW coast, to be delivered to the mechanic.

Next snag…door didn’t fit properly. Inadequate packing – or maybe faulty manufacture in NSW – had warped something. It would need fiberglass work, which M’s neighbour agreed to do, in his factory. Mechanic delivered Bus there. It might take a while, as neighbour fitted it in amongst his very busy work schedule.  The chance of having Bus ready in time to be snapped up for the coming grey nomad northern travel season was rapidly disappearing.

To be turned into frozen apple sauce

When we moved here, had been told the five apple trees planted in two gardens, were crab apples. I wondered why on earth anyone would want to plant even one of those – who makes crab apple jelly these days? Five of the things? It had become obvious, in last summer’s fruit season, that these crab apples had not been properly maintained, and that they had a lot of branches that had grown from the original graft stock, bearing little green apples rather like a Granny Smith. I had commenced a program to prune out the crab apple branches and encourage the feral apple ones. I did leave one tree as a crab apple though, as M was a jam maker.

The selective pruning had been quite successful and we now had a really good crop of green apples. But John had not done any spraying, so we also had a plentiful crop of apple grubs. I was able to pick some of the better fruit, for stewing and freezing.

With so much garden produce being processed, we needed to buy yet another freezer! That made three of them: two medium sized chest style and a tall drawer-style one. There was room in the laundry – just – for the new one.

Another discovery was that the local Eastern Rosellas just love green apples! They spread the word around and we had groups of them battling to get at the fruit. Noisy but wonderful.

Eastern Rosella having its share of apple

 By the end of the month, we were hearing of an outbreak of the virus in Italy, and associated deaths.


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2020 Life and Travels January

2020 JANUARY

The new year began with scary and depressing events. Much of Victoria and south-eastern NSW was on fire, well beyond the capacity of emergency services to manage.

We watched horrifying footage of the destruction of much of the isolated township of Mallacoota, where residents and holiday makers took refuge in the lake and where evacuations by sea and helicopter eventually took place. Back in the 80’s and 90’s, we’d spent some summers camping at Mallacoota, which made more real the scenes we were seeing.

With mobile phone services having gone down there, we had no news of son at Narooma, as the situation on the south coast became more dire, roads were closed and escape routes became increasingly limited. As was fuel – TV news was showing long queues for same. Then, late on New Year’s Day there was, finally, a text message, to say the family was safely in Canberra, having managed to get south to Bega and thence inland to the ACT – the only way still open. Son had the foresight to fuel up soon after reaching Narooma on Boxing Day, so they had not been held up trying to get fuel when evacuating. His in-laws, Narooma residents, had also evacuated the same way, and they were all heading for Melbourne. So, a small piece of good news amongst the gloom.

Another concern was the fate of stepdaughter’s holiday house at South Durras. At least we knew none of the family was staying there. The little enclave did survive.

Our Prime Minister, initially missing in action, on holidays, during the crisis, then managed to further worsen his image during belated visits to fire affected areas.

First flowers on our new Corymbia

Although we’d been subject to days of Total Fire Ban, and the area was really dry, the Bendigo region was one that did not have any major fire outbreaks this summer. We were, however, affected by the smoky air that covered the State for days on end, as eastern Victoria burned.

John and I differed on how we would respond to any local fire threat, since our suburb is largely surrounded by ironbark forest. My plan was to take dog, motorhome and Terios, and go park somewhere more central and built up – Lake Weeroona, or a big shopping complex. John’s intention was to stay home and fight and fire threat. Hmmm…I thought that approach had been rather discredited in Black Saturday?

A really good tomato crop was harvested. Most evening meals began with my home made Gazpacho – a great favourite. I couldn’t convert any of the neighbours to cold soup, though. Apart from eating a lot of meals featuring tomatoes, at this time of year, I was kept busy preparing and freezing same. Ditto zucchini soups, since John operates on the philosophy of why plant three zucchini plants when you can plant six – or more?

Plenty more where they came from…

Fruit on the apricot tree ripened. Despite its netting cover, some of the fruit was shared with parrots. Couey seemed to appreciate the fallen fruit, which disappeared quickly from the ground. I could only hope she didn’t swallow the pips.

We’d had a few sightings of blue tongued lizards (one or several?) in the gardens and meandering across the patio. At one stage, it seemed Liz might have begun snacking on John’s tomato crop, so I began putting out pieces of apple to try to divert the reptile. Then, when I went to pick some tomatoes, the mystery of the disappearing apricots was solved. In a nicely protected row between tomatoes, there were little heaps of apricot pips. Obviously, Liz had helped itself to the fallen fruit and retreated to cover to snack on same.

Another little lizard critter gave me a fright, when I discovered it hiding under a folding table I went to move. A pretty one. I hoped the resident reptiles were only of the lizard variety, and there were not snakes hiding anywhere.

Pretty little critter

The really hot days kept us confined indoors. John messed about with computer things and watched cricket on TV. Far too hot to work out in his shed.

 I started to assemble my second-ever quilt, having finished hand-piecing the top for it. Spent ages pinning the three layers – top, batting centre “sandwich” and backing fabric – together, using special safety pins that became a vivid reminder of my children’s days in nappies. Really sore fingers! I worked slowly, trying to delay the final stage of doing the actual quilting. After doing some damage to wrist, back when I hand quilted my first quilt, had decided that this stage would henceforth be done on a sewing machine. John had, before we left Melbourne, bought me a new machine for this purpose, more modern than my two decades old Janome. But I was lacking confidence in what would be a new technique, and thus reluctant to begin.

Further avoided tackling the quilt by completing a Hardanger embroidered runner, with which I was very pleased.

John decided that the air-con on my little Terios was not working well, so one early morning I drove it across town to be worked on. Was driven home again by the mechanic. After he turned into our road, he asked which was my house. I looked twice, blinked, then replied “Err – the one the kangaroo just hopped out of!”. Don’t know where it came from, hadn’t seen it before, but it hopped away up the road.

Mid-month, there were some really heavy thunderstorm rain events here. During one of these, the patio flooded – about 5 or 6 cms deep. After that, John called in a plumber, who attempted to bore out the pipes that drained that area, telling John the big ornamental pear tree at the front was probably blocking the drains and he wasn’t sure his efforts had fixed the issue. Guess time will tell.

Early last year, I’d noticed that the pittosporum trees that lined our front side fence, were infested with little black ladybird-like bugs.

 Google told me they were Pittosporum shield bugs, that needed to be eradicated for the health of the bushes. It also told me that spraying with soapy detergent water would do the job, so I had liberally applied same. The bugs disappeared – or died – and I had congratulated myself on a successful intervention. But it had gradually become apparent through the year that the bushes also hadn’t liked the soapy spray as they turned brown and dead. The law of unintended consequences was at work. I’d hoped spring might see new shoots, but not to be. Come autumn, there would have to be new plantings down the side fence. This month, I noticed the bugs were infesting the pittosporums along the back side fence. This time I tackled them by daily hosing with the strongest jet of water the hose could produce. Wouldn’t kill them, but might encourage them to fly away elsewhere.

With neighbours putting out lots of seeds for the local birdlife, we were also getting the occasional local rodent, so out went the rat trap cages. Didn’t catch any rats, but did catch Liz – twice. Curious critters, blue tongues.  Also slow learners…

Liz

Liz heading off into hiding – or after fallen apples?

For some weeks, we had been reading rumours of the outbreak of a new, virus in China, that was killing people. Initially, it was hard to really believe that this would be anything other than another flu-like virus, similar to a couple of similar events in the last decade or so.

Grandson returned from his overseas hockey jaunt on 18th, via a stopover in Singapore. I met up with him and his mum, for a coffee, the next day. Told him – half seriously – to watch out for any cold or flu symptoms! He was fine. But we were later to find out that Australia’s first case of Covid, a man Travelling in from China, arrived in this country on 19th. Three more China-linked cases arrived later this month.

Though we didn’t realize it at the time, this was the year our lives were to change, radically, and our nation – indeed, much of the world – was never to be the same again.