Oh, hello, quarantine New Zealand and I’m in the Crown Plaza, Auckland. Just happens to be one of my fav hotel chains and my all-time best hotel in Auckland.
Getting here was not as easy as I anticipated. Spent all of my research time ticking the boxes, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s to get to New Zealand. Not for a minute did I think that I wouldn’t be allowed out of Australia. I rocked up to Brisbane International, ready to go, and I didn’t get past Border Security waiting at the door. They asked if I had permission to leave! Hello, New Zealand citizen and passport holder, what’s the issue? A big issue when you don’t listen to or pay attention to border closures.
I had no idea that we couldn’t randomly leave of our own free will. Yes, in hindsight, this global pandemic meant a lot going on behind the scenes, and available quarantine facilities was just one of them. I do have to say I was on my best behaviour, but so very much walking an emotional tightrope. It could have gone all sorts of bad.
My saving grace was that I had dual passports, residency in both countries. Duplicate everything, licence, bank account, residential address. The clincher, however, was that I hadn’t been a resident in either country for the past two years, and oh yes, they calculated every day I’d been in Australia.
Drama aside, tantrum avoided and thankfully no arrest, I boarded the plane. Similar checks and balances and I’m finally home.
Now, there are a couple of differences between quarantine Australia and quarantine New Zealand, but I don’t for a minute presume it’s the country that matters. Let’s face it, everyone is making it up as they go along and each hotel in different states or countries offers, or not, different things. Crown Plaza, Auckland offers windows that open, I don’t need to go outside but an opening window and a bit of airflow is pretty awesome.
What really fascinated me though was that you could roam around the hotel. My previous experience was that once you entered the room, you pretty much didn’t leave it. Here there was a coffee bar downstairs, Covid test done in the ballroom, not at your door. Many more opportunities to go for a walk, in a caged area out the front of the hotel or for longer in the carpark.
Nice bit of freedom, but honestly, I didn’t want to be roaming around. How do I know the on day-12, negative test, two days and I’m free, that the person getting out of the lift I was walking into had not just arrived from a hotspot country? Feck that, I’d rather stay in my room.
Bathtubs, booze, and great food, what’s not to like? Have to say that New Zealand did better on the plastic, and it was also much nicer to eat off a proper plates then out of a plastic tub. Actually, very little plastic at all. But really, when all’s said and done, there were pluses and minuses of both, but at the end of the day, personally didn’t give a fat rats about any of them.
Blessed to make it home, and without my Australian passport, I may not have. Blessed to have two experiences in quarantine without the fee. There are many stories about shitty experiences in quarantine but let’s not forget that this pandemic took everyone by surprise. Governments were looking after their own, or themselves, whatever. For those of us who made it back, be thankful, not everyone did, or will.
Hmmm that was a good read my friend……now the struggle seems so real to me!! *sighs*
Yep, all that flitting back and forwards we took for granted. Who knew the time would come where you can’t just pick up and go home.