Arrived Cairns

 Hello all for the first time in nearly a year!

I had a good laugh reading the end of my last entry in early July 2020. I said I hoped things got better soon in Victoria. Little did we all know that living in Melbourne wouldn’t get better for about another four months, and even then would still be a bit of a roller coaster!!

I’ve been lucky enough to go on a few little adventures since our massive lockdown ended - Colac/The Otways, Echuca, Launceston/Cradle Mountain, Lakes Entrance, Newcastle and Daylesford. It’s been great getting out and seeing and doing things when we are able to. I’m really grateful I’ve been able to go on those trips.

Like most though, I’ve also had a fair few trips cancelled throughout all of this. Which in the scheme of things isn’t a major problem, but is nevertheless disappointing.

So the trip Rob and I set off on today was one of our cancelled ones - we cancelled it twice, in fact. In August 2019 I booked Queensland for July 2020 as a surprise for Rob for his 30th. The trip was cancelled and we pushed it to September, and then it was obviously cancelled again. So earlier this year as things started to look more promising, we plucked up the courage to try for a third time. And we’ve made it!!

During our most recent lockdown in Melbourne which began just over a month ago, we thought for sure we would be rescheduling everything for a third time. But what a strange turn of events - Victoria is looking good at the moment while we see outbreaks pop up all over the country.

The last few days have been taken up following the news and press conferences. We’ve gone from “no way will we get to go”, to growing in confidence each day, to Annastacia Palaszcuk opening the border but then Brisbane having an outbreak so Victoria classifying that area as an “orange zone”. As a result, today was a bit of an adventure in itself. We woke up to find that Brisbane had been reclassified as an orange zone overnight. Our paranoia grew and grew about being able to get home successfully, until we ended up booking a new flight today. We were originally meant to fly to Cairns via Brisbane today but we decided it was too risky. So the credit card got a good workout, but we felt relieved as soon as we had a plan B in place to go direct to Cairns. As it turned out, Qantas gave us our entire booking back in credit and we were able to change our flight home to a direct one as well using that. So we are feeling good now! Less stress and hopefully smooth sailing from here (as smooth as it can be 18 months into a global pandemic living in a country with not much of its population vaccinated).

So we headed to the airport today and went and saw Grandma and Grandpa on the way which was nice. Then we sat in the terminal, ate our own food to avoid moving around much and eventually boarded our plane. It was sad to see lots of Sydney, Brisbane and Perth flights on the board cancelled - I look forward to a day where we can all go wherever we like more easily.

I was super impressed with Jetstar’s customer service. I have a mask exemption, and going somewhere new without a mask makes me feel pretty anxious that people are going to yell abuse at me or shoot me dirty looks because they don’t know. But the Jetstar staff were really friendly and considerate when they asked me if I had a mask and I showed them my exemption. The lady at the boarding gate even sent the flight crew a note of my seat number so I didn’t get hassled mid flight. So when we boarded and sat down and the whole process was all done, Rob and I grinned at each other and finally felt relaxed. I feel like travelling used to be second nature. Nowadays there are so many factors and complications that I become a bundle of nerves about the whole thing until we are finally on the way.

The flight was three hours 20 minutes long. I’ve definitely lost my flight stamina too. There was a time when a 13-15 hour one was long but manageable. By the 1.5 hour mark nowadays I get restless as I’m not used to it, haha!! We were all crammed in like sardines as it was a full flight. But a nice bonus was the when the crew serving snacks and drinks told us that the expensive flight category we had to purchase included drinks and snacks. So we enjoyed a cider and a beer and some snacks.

I haven’t been to Queensland since 2013, and I had forgotten how glorious it is leaving the plane and having the Queensland warmth smack you in the face. Heaven! We picked up our hire car easily and were surprised to get an upgrade for free, so we are driving a RAV 4. Our hotel was a ten minute drive away and we are ready for bed now - it's after midnight!

I am so glad we are here, and can't quite believe it! I look forward to taking you with us for the amazing experiences we have planned over the next week. I’ve really missed writing my blog.

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox