Evacuated As, Bro ~ New Zealand
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Well, this is perhaps the most unusual soundtrack I’ve tuned into whilst hunkering down to write a travel entry. I’m cancelling the trip I’m about to write about, which I have already been on, but am meant to have been on.
Stick with me, it’ll all make sense.
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Eight weeks ago, in a delicious amalgamation of spontaneity, restlessness, and coffee, I booked a flight to New Zealand. And a campervan. And the company of two old friends. I was elated, giddy, and desperate for the width and breadth of the great New Zealand-ian outdoors.
Three weeks ago, it was the day before departure and something didn’t feel right. Not wrong, just off. That’s when the first message came in. Our three-piece was now a duo after one dear pal was struck down by illness (no, not the one you’re thinking of).
A tad deflated, but still in high-holiday spirits, two of us sat merrily at the airport.
This is it, I thought, enjoy yourself, as I inhaled an entire bag of chocolate coated liquorice for lunch and then purchased an overpriced book. That’s when the second blow came. Our flight, after five hours of waiting in the airport, was cancelled (and no, not because of what you’re thinking of; because of engineering issues). Chocolate-less and miserable, we skulked back home.
Airport, day two. Huge success. MEGA success. We were on a flight that actually took off. Took us all the way to Christchurch too! How lucky!
And boy, oh boy, how joyous we were to have made it. In a delirious haze of giggles and exhaustion, we scooped up our van (more affectionately donned Britzy), sprayed his insides with disinfectant and filled him with cookies, and we drove and drove and drove. We went from coast to coast, stopping at every gorge, waterfall, track, dairy, field, farm, lake and lookout. We hiked up mountains and swam in glacial pools and ate cup noodles in camp chairs. To sum it up: isolated, blissful, simple.
Then one day, on a lonely road that ran through an even lonelier town, our phones simultaneously pinged in a rare moment of connection.
THEY’RE SHUTTING THE BORDERS GET HOME ASAP
A quick scroll lamented the fact that whilst we were becoming transcendent, nature-wielding nymphs, the world was spiralling into a global pandemic. Yes, the one you’re thinking of.
Cue: panic.
Our original flights had disappeared without word. My inbox was assaulted with emails from the insurance company, the van hire company, the store where I bought the jacket I was wearing – in these unfortunately unprecedented times that are most unpleasant, we will be unable to understand any refunds that have unforeseeably arisen. Un-freakin’-believable.
In scramble of anxiety-infused chaos, we had managed to snag spots on the last flight to Australia before the international border closure. It also meant that we had 12 hours to hike up a mountain, drive 300km, return our home on wheels, and eat a hundred bucks worth of groceries. Challenge accepted.
In what was quite literally a sprint to the finish line, we arrived back home a mere six days after we left; days that began like all the ones that came before, and concluded with a border-locked, toilet-paperless pandemic. I’m home and I’m healthy and all in all, things went about as well as they could have despite the circumstances. I had a wonderful six days. In fact, they were spectacular and joyous and I wouldn’t change a single one of them.
But there’s a cruel lesson to be learnt in things unfinished, and it lives in all the cracks of my New Zealand-less-ness.
It lives in Day 12 of self-isolation. It lives in my mingled gratefulness and disappointment to be home. It lives in my denial to unpack. And cruellest of all, it lives in minute 93 of being on hold.
Ps. BIG LOVE to my travel partner in crime, my oldest friend. Here’s to becoming the grown ups we always wanted to be.